


The Shade

by zeerogue



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: ChanHun, Fantasy AU, M/M, SeYeol, TaoXing - Freeform, kailu - Freeform, kyungmyeon, kyungmyun, laytao - Freeform, lukai - Freeform, powers, sudo - Freeform, taolay - Freeform, war game au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-30 22:48:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 50,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10886529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeerogue/pseuds/zeerogue
Summary: In the world of EXOTICA there is a game played every century between the ruling houses of the divided kingdom. It is a game of war and wit in which no one wins. The only goal, keep your prince alive before the clock runs out. If both princes stand, then peace comes to the kingdom, if not, Chaos.Twelve playersTwo sides100 days before time runs out





	1. Into Your World

**The Shade**

 

**Into Your World:**

 

 

It had been thirty days since the turn of the new century in the world of EXOTICA. It had taken fifteen days for the earth to settle and fifteen days for the sun to still on the horizon leaving half the land in dark and the other half in light. The world’s breaths were shallow and still, almost as if it wasn’t alive at all, as if everything had stopped.

 

One man climbed up a flight of stairs slowly, to stand on top of one of the many steel buildings that covered the valley between the two castles of Exotic on the side where light still touched. He stood there watching as the sun stilled on the horizon wondering when it would start to move again, when citizens would walk among the steal buildings again in peace, without worry of war between the two castles for the next hundred years. Seventy days. They had seventy days left to see if their time would begin again.

 

The man glanced around the land, from the sun soaked castle set on the beach of an ocean of Mafic to the shadow covered castle of Kelsic built into the mountains. The man could only feel a slight motion of air against skin and his heart beating against his chest. He lifted his hands out beside him and let the air move against his skin. One hand felt warm from the sun while the one that faced the dark side of the kingdom felt cold.

 

The man lowered his cold hand and turned to look at the darkened side of the kingdom. He glared at the steel and stone castle of Kelsic at the edge of the mountain ridge. Somewhere inside, he could see movement, hurried feet of the Kelsic chosen walking around the castle. He glared at them all, almost as if willing everything to suddenly burst into flames, but he knew that would not happen, at least not until the end of the last seventy days, at the end of this one hundred day game.

 

He looked back across to the ocean where his own castle stood in the sun’s light, his Mafic. His fists clenched as he stared at his home before he broke eye contact and stared up at the sky. He closed his eyes and lifted his hands again before suddenly jumping up from the building. A metal cuff on his left hand caught the light of the sun and he felt a power surge through him, lifting him higher into the sky. He flew, hitting spots against the sky as if there were invisible spring boards and headed toward the castle on the beach, toward the sunset.  

 

The man’s feet landed before the Mafic castle’s front door. Another man stood at the door, arms folded and he stared ahead, not bothering to follow the flying man’s movements as he approached the doors. He stopped beside the guarding man, not looking at him.

 

“It’s almost time.”

 

“The sun stopped, they should awaken soon then, Kris?”

 

The flying man nodded. “Yes, they will awaken soon. You won’t have time to play anymore, Chen. You are to be completely devoted to him.”

 

The man standing guard of the door nodded and looked down at his hand where a scorpion ring had taken home.

 

Kris didn’t say more and opened the door; the other man followed him in.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽**

  

 

The Kelsic and Mafic castles were identical mirrors of each other. The story of why there were two castles, two ruling houses, had long been lost. During the hundred years, they were peaceful homes, family members often changing between the two houses, sharing responsibility, but as the turn of the century approached, bitterness grew in their hearts from fear and family turned against family, splitting into two. Then the game began. 

 

The healer of the Kelsic castle quickly made his way through the shell white halls and down to the dungeons. It was eerie and dark, the walls steel and sweating. There was a large door, covered by locks and the Kelsic leader stood beside it, drawing patterns with the water coating the walls. The healer came to a stop at the door and waited for the leader to look at him. When he continued to stare at the wall, moving the water droplets with his fingers, the healer cleared his throat.

 

The leader turned and looked at him. “Oh, D.O, you’re here.”

 

The healer bowed. “Yes, yes I’m here, Suho. The sun has set.”

 

The leader looked at the door he stood in front of and pushed one of the water drops over to it. “Has it really been thirty days already?”

 

“Yes, not long to go now, almost half way done,” D.O said a smile crossing his face.

 

Suho frowned and moved his hand from the door, wiping the water against his jeans. He turned to D.O and forced a smile. “I suppose it is close to the end. I’m unsure whether that is good or bad.”

 

D.O reached out and held onto the leader’s arm. “Of course it is good. Our grandparents survived this game and so will we. All we have to do is survive.”

 

Just survive. The leader smiled and pulled the healer to him, holding him close. The healer had a warm feeling, a comforting aura that eased Suho’s worries and made him hope that he could have the same calm attitude toward the next seventy days that the healer did.

 

“Is he awake?” D.O asked.

 

Suho looked at the door they stood in front of and shook his head. “Not yet, but soon.”

 

D.O laid his head on the leader’s shoulder as he was held and stared at the door curiously. “I wonder what he’ll think when he wakes up. It would be sad for him to wake up alone.”

 

“Do you want to be there when he wakes up?” Suho asked.

 

D.O nodded. “I’m in charge of keeping all of you comfortable; I should make sure he’s comfortable when he wakes up.”

 

“That’s true,” Suho said and let the healer go. Immediately, all his worries resurfaced and he grabbed the healers hand to ease them again. He reached out with his other hand for the locks, tips of his fingers running against the keyholes.

 

“Do I need to find the keys?” the healer asked.

 

“No, I have them.”

 

“What’s wrong then? Do you not want to go see him?”

 

Suho shook his head and grabbed the key ring from his belt. There were four keys, each with a hexagon like shape that represented their world of EXOTICA. Only three of them went to the door before him, the other was a mystery to Suho. The last was a mystery to the leader. His predecessor had not told him its use, he hadn’t known it either. Suho lifted one of the keys to the first lock on the door and it clicked, three of the locks down unlocking as well. He moved to the next key and lock and four locks slid open. He slid in the last key and the last five unlocked, the door sliding open with a whoosh of steam from the inner room.

 

D.O pulled the leader through the door to a room filled with monitors and machines, a cold fog swirling around the equipment. Suho let the healer’s hand go and walked purposely passed all the equipment and to a glass tube. He placed his hand against the glass, the thin neon green gel inside moving with the convection the machines created around the body inside.

 

“Will he really wake up soon?” D.O asked placing his hand against the glass, too.

 

Suho looked at the body inside. Their eyes were closed, but framed with dark eyelashes, mouth covered by a mask with a tube that ran out and connected to a machine outside the tube. The rest of the person was bare as he floated in the thick liquid, limp like a lifeless doll.

 

“Yes, he will awake soon. Our world’s time has paused so his will begin again,” Suho said and removed his hand from the tube and walked over to one of the machines. Many screens covered the desk with different graphs and data running across the screen.

 

D.O joined him and studied the data. “Everything seems normal. Well, I can’t say it is normal to be fed for a whole year through vitamin gel and whatever else they put in there. I’ll cook something good for everyone when he wakes up, alright.”

 

Suho turned a slightly truer smile to the healer. “Food would be good. He would appreciate a good meal, I am sure.”

 

The healer smiled and continued to study the different monitors until his eyes landed on a small glass box with a piece of silver jewelry inside. “Will you present that to him?”

 

Suho looked at the box as well. “The power to move without the restraint of time, the power of a Shade, our Shade; of course I will present it to him, it is his after all, his birth right.”

 

Suho looked back at the tube where the naked boy floated. He did not want to give him that small piece of silver, but it had been decided over a year before that it was his.

 

“It is a bit depressing, is it not?” the healer asked with a chuckle.

 

“You are not to think of depressing things D.O,” the leader said and took the healer’s hand between his staring at them intently.

 

The healer looked at his leader a bit surprised, but nodded and smiled, to try and encourage the other that it was fine. “He will wake up and all of this will be over soon.”

 

“It would be over sooner if he didn’t,” Suho said softly and held the healer’s hand tighter. If only he did not awaken.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽**

 

He felt wet. Not the good kind of wet, though he wasn’t sure what the good kind of wet was. It was sticky and moved against his body in ways that made him feel uncomfortable but he could not move, at least not much. Was he supposed to move? There were things that didn’t move, where there not? He thought he remembered being told everything moved, even if the movement was so small that you could not see it, everything moved. He did not remember who had told him that. He also thought if he had the thought that he should move then he should. What to move, though?

 

It was so dark, why couldn’t he see? Perhaps the darkness was what he saw? How was he supposed to know what to move if he couldn’t see? He wanted to see. Something was moving, something close. Was he moving? He could see. It felt weird, like something was touching his eyes, the stuff that made him feel wet. It was green, that was what this color was, and he knew that. He did not like it, whatever this green stuff was. He wanted out of it.

 

It went dark again for a second and again and he realized he was blinking, the green stuff irritating his eyes. Things moved beyond the green stuff and he saw figures…people…two men standing together, looking at each other. He was a man, he was like them, he knew that, but he was also different, he knew that, too. They would get him out of the green stuff. When, he did not know and did not care to wait. He would move.

 

An arm, that was what he was moving. He could see the end, the hand move through the green stuff and touch the edge of the green stuff, touch the glass. It slid down the glass and back to his side. He moved it again and applied pressure so his arm would stay and moved the other. He curled his fingers, balling his hands up, and tapped it on the glass. Tap, tap, tap. He could hear. It did not sound right will all the green stuff around him. Was there some in his ears? He wanted it out, he wanted out.

 

He tapped again, harder. There were louder sounds from outside the glass. They hurt his ears and he moved back. It was hard to move through the green stuff, it made him feel heavy. Why did he have to be here? He wanted out. Out, out, out. He had something to do. He needed to go. Out, out, out.

 

It cracked, the glass cracked. It kept cracking, the green stuff moved. Was he allowed out now?  


	2. Metal

**Metal:**

 

The sound of cracking glass alerted the leader before the alarms on the monitors did. He turned away from the healer and watched as the green gel pushed against the cracks causing it to shatter and the body inside fell to the floor with it. D.O went over and kneeled beside the boy on the floor as he struggled to sit up. Suho looked at the monitors, checking the vitals of the boy before the screens suddenly started going black.

 

“You should not rip those off,” D.O said from beside the boy.

 

The boy tugged at the mask over his mouth, fingernails scraping at the tight suction there. Suho turned away from the monitors and moved to D.O and the boy. He leaned down and reached out for the mask on the boy’s face. His first attempt was denied; the boy slapped his hand away and seemed to growl at him. Suho moved his hand again, grabbing the mask and pulled. The boy fought against his hand, but he was still weak from just awaking. He gasped and coughed when the mask was pulled free and bent forward, spitting out remnants of the green gel that had slowly seeped through the mask over the past almost four hundred days.

 

“Alright, take an easy,” the healer said and patted the boy’s back. He pulled his hand away, coated in a light film that the green gel had created around the boy. “He needs to be washed off.”

 

“We shouldn’t let him out until he ready. Stand him up and I’ll wash him off.”

 

The healer agreed and took the boy’s arms he tried to pull away, but D.O sent him a comforting smile and he seemed to loose all interest in fighting. D.O held his one arm, another hand on his mid-back to support, and looked toward Suho. The leader stepped back and moved his arms in a circular motion in front of him. Water accumulated, pulled from the dampness of dungeon air around them and threw it at the boy.

 

The boy moved his arms to shield him and groaned when the water touched his skin in sheets, drenching him. Suho continued to shower the boy until the green gel had washed away across the floor of the dungeon. He went over and grabbed the boy’s other arm, helping the healer lead him over to a seat and he slumped over there, coughing more.

 

“Do we have a towel?” D.O asked.

 

“Look beside the tube.”

 

The healer went to the broken tube and found a stack of towels and essentials placed behind it. He pulled them out and headed back to the boy. He wrapped the towel around his head, towel drying his dark hair. The boy didn’t move, just sat quietly on the chair with an occasional cough until D.O was finished drying him off.

 

Suho went to the glass box where the silver pyramid nestled in silence. He tapped a red button and the glass covering the box opened. The leader picked the piece of jewelry up and approached the boy.

 

“Look up; do you know where you are?” Suho asked.

 

The boy looked at Suho and shook his head.

 

“You understand me?”

 

The boy nodded.

 

“Do you speak?” Suho asked.

 

The boy stared at him.

 

“Speak, move your lips,” Suho repeated and touched the boy's thick lips with just enough pressure to part them then moved away.

 

The boy moved his hand and touched his own plumps lips as well. “Speak. I speak.”

 

Suho smiled and nodded. “Good, you know how to speak. Your name?”

 

The boy shook his head. “What is name?”

 

Suho looked down at the silver jewel then at the boy. “My name is Suho, you call me Suho.”

 

“My name is D.O,” the healer added, finished drying the boy.

 

“I do not have one,” the boy said.

 

Suho nodded. “You do now. Your name is Kai.”

 

“My name is Kai,” the boy repeated.

 

Suho held out the silver jewelry to the boy. The boy, Kai, lifted his hand and the jewel was dropped into it. Suho closed his hand around the jewelry.

 

“This is yours; do you know what it is for?”

 

“The game.”

 

Suho sighed. The boy knew of the game, of course that would be what he knew of most. He wondered how much he knew though. “Yes, the game. Do you know what the game is?

 

The boy’s expression turned blank. It was almost as if he could not process the question. Suho waited to see if anything would change, but the boy stayed blank. D.O touched his arm and Kai finally snapped out of it and turned, looking between them.

 

“The game,” Kai repeated.

 

Suho shook his head. “Do you know your position in the game?”

 

Kai shook his head.

 

“Your position is the Shade?”

 

Kai nodded. “I am Kai the Shade. Your position?”

 

“I am Suho, the leader,” Suho answered then turned a hand toward D.O. “This is D.O, the healer.”

 

“Healer,” Kai said looking at D.O then back to Suho. “And my leader. You control me. You command me. What are leader’s commands?”

 

Suho turned away from the boy. He looked around the dungeon, the home of the shade for the past almost four hundred days. Though the game didn’t start until the first day of the first year of each century, the Shade’s days began much sooner. All so they could fulfill their one duty.

 

Suho turned back to Kai. “First, we will get you dressed and ready and then, you will kill the Mafic prince.”

 

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽**

 

 

Kris’s words echoed in the Guard’s ears. No more time to play, no time at all. Though the game was said to last a hundred days, for the people not involved it was only a day. The one hundred was a mental count, twenty-four player hours repeated one hundred times. The guard kept count somewhere in the back of his mind as each second ticked by. He did not want to leave it all to the leader who was stressed enough without keeping the time.

 

No more time for play. Or was it time to play and no more time for rest? Could you consider it play if the game was not fun?

 

Earlier, before the sun stilled on the horizon, Chen had been at the beach practicing like he use to before the turn of the century, like he still did. Except, he use to practice with guns and spears, now he practiced with unnatural superpowers. The Kelsic guard had shown up. He always showed up, it was just how he was, at least when it came to Chen. He had taken a seat by the usual beach tree and watched Chen practice giving occasional advice that sounded more like taunting and annoyed Chen because he would usually find them helpful later.

 

They had always been a sort of rivals to each other he supposed. He had wondered if that was why Baekhyun had volunteered to be Kelsic’s guard after Chen was drafted into the position on the Mafic side. He wondered if he hated him that much to want to go against him so. Baekhyun and he often dueled before, but the game required so much more than a semi-friendly spat. They would almost kill each other before, would not one of them definitely die now?

 

Chen asked this of the Kelsic guard every time he joined his practice since they had been given their symbols a year prior when the Shades had gone into sleep. Baekhyun’s answer was always the same. He would smile cheekily at Chen almost as if trying to be cute and say: “I wouldn’t mind being killed by you, but I am not going to die.” Then he would get up and make a show of his powers with flashy lights until Chen got annoyed and cut him off with a show of his own powers. His leader had said it was a pretty sight they made when showing each other up, lighting up the sky with their bright shocking powers.

 

Next time the sky lit up, it would not be so pretty. Next time Chen saw Baekhyun, it would not be a simple banter it would be real. He would have to attack. No more time to play, no more time for friendly enemies.

 

The Mafic guard stayed out for a few more minutes just to stare at the sky, see if even a cloud would move. Of course they did, there was still air, but he knew they would not get far; they would not rain for days and days; just keep building and building.

 

Eventually, Chen turned around and walked into the castle. The walls were the same shell white as the Kelsic castle and parts of it reminded him that the world of EXOTICA had not always been metal sky scrapers and silver jewelry. There was a time when the game did not exist, or so he chose to believe.

 

“Chen?”

 

The guard’s attention turned when he heard his name called. Standing at the end of the hall was a man a little older then he. On one shoulder was pinned a silver pendent in the shape of a unicorn, the sign of the Mafic healer. Chen bowed his head to him before continuing to walk, standing before him.

 

“Yes, is there something you need, Lay?”

 

The healer shook his head. “No, you just seemed deep in thought, were you out practicing?”

 

“Earlier I was, recently I was guarding,” Chen answered.

 

“Right, of course. There still seems to be something off.”

 

Chen licked his lips in an attempt to steady his thoughts. Being next to the healer helped, but it was not quite enough to make him feel completely at ease.

 

“The sun stopped.”

 

The healer looked at him in surprise. “The sun stopped?”

 

“Yes, did you forget today was the thirtieth day?” Chen asked.

 

Chen watched as the healer’s face went blank, processing what Chen’s words meant. He wondered often why Lay was picked for the healer as he easily forgot things, but perhaps that was his charm, able to forget those things that plagued the others’ minds so his feelings for them did not weigh him down and then he had more energy to comfort the others. The healers had an easier job, did they not? Chen could not see himself as a healer though. He needed to fight, he always had.

 

The healer’s face suddenly lit up with understanding then went dark. “The Shades?”

 

“Yes, they should awake soon.”

 

The healer’s face turned urgent and he looked around. “I need to be there, I need to be there when he wakes up.”

 

The guard did not quite understand the healer’s urgency to see the Shade. He personally dreaded the thought of that thing awaking. If he awoke then all of this was real, the game was real. He wondered what would happen if someone killed the shade while he was still in the tube? He had never been down to the dungeons to see the Mafic Shade and did not know if it was an impossible task to do, but what would happen?

 

“Where is he?” the healer asked.

 

“The Shade; he’s in the dungeon where he has always been,” Chen explained and gestured toward the direction the healer needed to go. “Shall I retrieve the leader to accompany you?”

 

“That’s right, that’s right, Xiumin needs to be there as well,” Lay said. “I will go get him. Do you know where he is?”

 

“I have been out all day; I have yet to see him. Kris was out, but he should know where he is. He just came in, it should not be a hard feet to find him. The weapon always knows where the leader is.”

 

“That’s right, I will find them,” the healer said and started walking, but paused and turned back to Chen. “Where are you headed? Do you plan to see the Shade as well?”

 

“I have no interest in meeting him. My only job is to keep our prince safe; I am headed to his room now.”

 

“Yes, please protect our prince,” the healer said and left.

 

Of course Chen would protect the prince, what else was there to do? If he died they would loose.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽**

 

 

A lone chair sat in the desert like area of EXOTICA between the edge of the mountain ridge and the beginning of the city on the Kelsic side. A boy walked across the sand toward the chair with long strides. The sand kicked up around his feet and settled in small piles behind him. Not a speck of his light colored clothing was touched, however, by the sand. He sat in the chair, back straight, head parallel to the ground and looked toward the horizon as the sun began to set. For hours, he sat in silence, completely still in both mind and body. The sun went lower and lower and the area behind him grew darker and darker until only the sand in which he sat was tinted in light. And it stopped.

 

The boy continued to stare out at the horizon, forcing himself to look straight into the sun. The wind around him suddenly started to pick up, creating tornadoes of sand behind him. They grew and grew, coming closer and closer to the boy and the chair. Suddenly, the boy stood up and began to walk towards the castle on the mountains. The tornadoes followed him as he made his long trek back. He paused though and stared at the castle that mirrored his own on the beach. He could see something fluttering away from it and toward him. How long had he sat staring at the sun? It must have been long enough.

 

He held his hand out as the orange thing approached. It was a butterfly, orange and lined with black. It fluttered down onto the boy’s hand. He stared at it for a moment, studying, coming up with any other meaning. There was not one, however. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This was it, this was finally it. A smile spread across his lips and he turned back to look at the other castle. His eyes roamed up the stone and metal structure until it fell on one particular window. He did not know whether the Mafic prince was there, but he remembered that that was his room when they were younger. He remembered laughing and playing in it for years until they were forced apart.

 

The boy’s smile turned dark and he glared at the window. He clenched his fist; the butterfly barely able to flutter out of his hand to escape being crumpled like trash paper. Yes, it was time, it was time for the shadow to become the tree and for _him_ to be gotten rid of.

 

“We will part again, soon, brother.”

 


	3. Time Control

**Time Control:**

 

 

Once cleaned and dressed, the Shade looked like any other person in the castle. He sat on the leader’s bed in a black shirt and black pants, hair slicked back and fiddled with his pin. It was only when he looked up at Suho that the leader was reminded he was not like them. The Shade was an empty shell, and those black clothes fit his position just a little too well. The leader made a mental note to ask the healer to give the Shade bright clothes on occasion. If the Shade was to always wear black, the leader would not be able to take looking at him every time they conversed.

 

“Leader,” the Shade said and looked up at him.

 

Suho looked back, back into those dark empty orbs that waited with unnatural patients. He wondered if they would change in the next seventy days, if some sort of feeling would surface in them. He looked away. “You are dressed now, so we will get back to business.”

 

The Shade straightened up and stopped fiddling with his pin, holding the silver jewelry in one hand. Suho thought he looked quite innocent with that expectant obedient expression on his face. The leader had a thought that he must have been quite an innocent boy if ever a boy at all.

 

“What do you know of the game, Kai?”

 

“The game is played every hundred years. There are twelve players, six on each side: Leader, Weapon, Healer, Guard, Prince, and Shade. You are the leader of my side, D.O is the healer, and I am the Shade. That is all.”

 

The Shade’s knowledge was very limited. Suho had guessed as much after the conversation in the dungeon. The Shade did not need knowledge, just ability. He walked over to his dresses and picked up a file. He opened it and collected a few sheets. He pulled up a chair in front of Kai on his bed and pulled out one of the sheets, a portrait of the Mafic leader.

 

“This is the Mafic leader. You are not to go near him.”

 

The Shade reached out and ran his hand along the lines of the portrait, outlining the soft puffy cheeks of the person on the picture. “Do not go near the Mafic leader,” he repeated and Suho could see him storing the information, stamping it into his mind.

 

Suho pulled out another portrait, one of a tall man with a sharp handsome face. “This is the Mafic weapon. He is no threat to you for now. Still, I want you to avoid him if at all possible.”

 

Again, the Shade outlined the face of the portrait and repeated Suho’s order. “Avoid the Mafic weapon.”

 

Suho pulled out a portrait of another person with many long angles to their face, but they looked softer. “This is the Mafic healer. Do not touch them; they are no threat to us.”

 

“The Mafic healer is no threat.”

 

Suho brought out another picture of a sharp jawed man. “Study this well, you will have to fight this man. He is the Mafic guard; he will try to keep you from your duty. Try not to kill him, though, that’s not your job.”

 

“The Mafic guard is a threat, try not to kill him.”

 

Suho put the picture away after it seemed the Shade had memorized the face. He hesitated before picking up the last picture. The face was angelic, soft and innocent, and it resembled so much that as his own prince. The first time he had seen it, he had faltered for a second in his own duties. It was a face of treachery at least since the pre game preparations. Suho held the picture up to the Shade and watched his expression.

 

Kai took the picture in with slightly wider eyes. Certainly such a face could confuse even an empty shale like the Shade.

 

“Who is this?” the Shade finally asked.

 

“This is your target, the one you are to try and kill. This is the Mafic prince.”

 

 The Shade ran his fingers along the lines of the prince’s face. When the leader felt his fingers had played too long, he pulled the picture away and hid it at the bottom of the stack of pictures. Kai’s eyes followed it and he stared at the stack.

 

“Is he younger?” the Shade asked.

 

“You know about age?” Suho had thought the Shade would only be left with the basic knowledge he would need for the game. Age had to place in the world of the game.

 

The Shade did not answer right away as if thinking if he really did know what he had asked. Eventually he nodded. “I know of age, I know you are older. Is he younger?”

 

“No, he’s older, older than me, older than most. Do not let his face fool you. Your only job is to kill him, do you understand?”

 

“Kill the Mafic Prince, the one that looks young but is old. I understand, Leader.”

 

Suho nodded, satisfied, and stood up. He placed the file back on his dresser. He turned to the Shade again and gestured he stand up. The leader walked over to him and took his left hand where he still held tightly to his pin. With a little resistance, he pried it out of Kai’s hand and held the pin before the Shade’s eyes.

 

“This is a symbol of the power you were given when you became the Shade of Kelsic,” he said. Suho unclipped the pin and slipped one hand beneath the collar of Kai’s shirt. He poked at a spot in the black material, raising it and brought the clip of the pin through. He removed his hand and fastened the pin in place. “There, now you can use your powers, Kai, let me see them.”

 

The Shade just stood there for a moment. “What is my power?”

 

Suho tapped the triangular piece of silver on Kai’s shoulder. “I do not know this, Kai. This jewel is only yours. All I know is it can warp time in a way.” The leader took a few steps back and leaned against his dresser. “Show me your power, Kai.”

 

It took a few more seconds before suddenly the Shade disappeared it a swirling mass of black only to reappear again beside Suho not even a second later.

 

“That is my power, Leader.”

 

Suho stared at Kai for a moment before smiling and then he laughed. The ability to move without time constraint, the ability to go anywhere you want in shorter than a second. Teleportation. Certainly Mafic would loose.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

 

It proved to be fruitless searching for Kris. The Mafic weapon was nowhere in sight and Lay sighed dejected. He looked around nervously wondering if the Shade had awoken yet. He wanted to be there when his eyes opened, to be the first thing the Shade saw. But he could not go there alone. Where could the leader be?

 

The healer started down the halls again. He would have checked the leader’s room, but he had a feeling Xiumin would not be there. A few halls later found him on his own wing, the place they had given to Lay to call his own, a safe haven. It had a different feel from the rest of the castle, a brighter air as if it was still those days before they were given their symbols. Lay tapped his own, the unicorn head on his left shoulder, and walked down the hall. In all the brightness, he felt something cold, something sad that attracted him and followed that sense. He stopped at the door of one of his sitting rooms and touched the handle with his hand. It was cold.

 

“Leader?” he asked and turned the knob.

 

The room inside was simple, just a simple table with a few chairs, a dresser, and pictures. It was a nice quiet place that Lay liked to come to just to sit and think, to actually let the more negative thoughts out. He had a little mirror at the end that he usually sat and at the other sat the Mafic leader.

 

Lay was not yet use to seeing Xiumin’s face in such a state. Before the participants of the game had been chosen, the soft cheeked man was always happy, eating merrily and working hard. He had originally come from the Kelsic side of the kingdom along with Chen, but Lay did not doubt his loyalty. He wondered why Xiumin was the leader at times, however. He had volunteered after all even though he was already thought of as a candidate.

 

The man sat with shoulders slumped and head bowed, a shadow covered his eyes. He looked like a small soft toy slumped in the chair, not like a person, not like someone who had a million responsibilities. Lay approached carefully. He did not want to startle the leader. The healer placed a tender hand on his shoulder before speaking.

 

“Xiumin, are you alright?”

 

Slowly, the leader lifted his head. The shadow across his face lightened and he forced a smile. “I’m fine.”

 

Lay removed his hand and walked in front of the leader. “I do not believe what you say, Xiumin. I can feel that you’re not happy.”

 

The Mafic leader frowned. “Of course I am not happy, it is the thirtieth day.”

 

“So you are aware of the day?” the healer asked.

 

“I have to count the days after all. Has the sun stopped, do you know?”

 

Lay nodded. “Kris watched it stopped and then told Chen. Chen told me. The sun has stopped; it is time for them to wake up.”

 

The shadow appeared across Xiumin’s face again. He moved his hand to the snowflake pin on his own shoulder. The silver pin glinted. “I wish they would not awake. Why?”

 

The room grew colder and Lay turned. He watched as frost covered the room, lacing the walls like a spider web. The healer approached one of the pictures on the wall, one with the creature that was his symbol. He touched it. So cold. Lay turned back to the leader.

 

“You are upset, please do not be. We must go see him now; we must be there when he awakens.”

 

“I do not wish to see him, to speak with him, to give him his duty.”

 

Lay kneeled before his leader. “But you must, you must see him. Our prince can not die.”

 

Xiumin nodded. “I know this, I know. I also know how desperate you are to see our Shade.

 

The healer took Xiumin’s hands in his. “Then if you know, please do not make me wait longer. I must be there when he awakens.”

 

“He will not be the same, Lay, you understand that, right?”

 

The healer nodded. “I understand, but I still have to take care of him, it is my job. He has been there for four hundred days; he needs me even if he does not know it.”

 

The leader sighed and stood. “If that is what you believe, I won’t change your mind. You are the healer; it is good when you are happy.”

 

The Mafic leader waved a hand and the frost retreated from where it covered the walls and pictures. Then, he headed toward the door. Lay followed, keeping a few steps behind. The air around the leader right then was cold.

 

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽**

 

 

 

He laid there struggling with the mask and tubes for a few minutes. He felt stinging on his hands, stinging from the glass he had cracked to crawl his way out of the tube. His skin felt slimy and he wanted to be cleaned. He had just gotten the mask off his face when two people walked in.

 

There was a gasp and someone walked over to him, kneeled down beside him. They looked down at him with eyes that swirled with emotions, eyes he knew. He allowed them to pull him into their arms and dirty their clothes with the green gel that had kept him alive for the past almost four hundred days.

 

“We need to clean him,” said the one that was holding him. “He will be cold if we do not.”

 

The other person walked away and came back with towels. He handed them to the one holding him and the felt soft fibers scrub at his skin. His eyes stayed fixed on this person, watching them as they fiddled with him.

 

“Do you know who you are?” asked the other.

 

He did not look away, only shook his head. Who was he? Who were they?

 

“You are Tao,” said the other. “Repeat your name.”

 

“Tao,” he said. The one cleaning him smiled. A part of one cheek sunk in, a dimple, he stared at it. “I am Tao.”

 

“You are the Shade of Mafic,” the other said. “That is your position.”

 

“I am the Shade,” he repeated. “I am Tao, Mafic’s Shade.”

 

“I am Xiumin. I am the Leader,” the other said.

 

He finally turned to look at him, the leader, and the one he was to obey. “You are my leader, Xiumin.”

 

The other suddenly smiled as well. “Yes, your leader, Tao.”

 

“I am Lay.”

 

He turned and looked at the one cleaning him. He stared at his face, his slightly smiling eyes and the place where the dimple formed. The name confused him. Lay?

 

“I am the healer.”

 

“Lay, the healer,” he repeated. Lay.

 

“Seems we did not come soon enough,” Xiumin said and went over to the monitors. He tilted up and glass box and grabbed a silver jewelry, a wrist band. He walked back and knelt before him. “This is yours.”

 

He looked at the silver symbol. It was shaped like an hour glass, an hour glass with time frozen inside, sand particles still suspended in air.

 

“That is mine.”

 

“This is your power, your symbol.”

 

“My power is Time Control,” he said and reached out a hand.

 

Xiumin smiled, this time a little more wide. “So it is.” He slid the band onto Tao’s wrist and stood up.

 

The Mafic Shade stared at the wrist banned in his hand. He turned to Lay and showed it to him as well.

 

Lay smiled. “Yes, your power, your symbol. It looks good on you.”

 

It looked good on him? He was not quite sure what that meant, but he felt the edge of his mouth twitch up slightly. He smiled.

 

The healer’s eyes widened a little at that, but he smiled back. The dimple appeared again. Tao poked it.

 

Xiumin looked around the room and picked up a file. “There’s no need to wait for him to dress, I will show him now and then you may fix him up, Lay.”

 

The healer nodded and wrapped a longer blanket around the Shade’s body. “Sit and listen, alright? He won’t take long and then we will get you cleaned.”

 

Xiumin opened a folder and presented pictures to Tao. At the last one, He held it closer. “This is the Kelsic prince, he is your target.”

 

“That is my target. Do you have a command for me, leader?” Tao asked.

 

“Yes, your command is to kill him. You must kill the Kelsic prince.”

 

The Shade turned and looked at the healer. His eyes were not the same as when he smiled, they seemed the opposite of that. Sad. Tao looked back at the picture and nodded.

 

“I will kill the Kelsic prince.”

 


	4. Black Pearl

**Black** **Pearl:**

 

 

The Kelsic prince couldn’t hear the footsteps coming down the hall, but he could feel the shift in the air. The normally damp and quiet atmosphere outside his door became darker and he forced down a shiver as he stared at the door. There was a knock and the prince nodded. He watched as a black vortex like space appeared before his desk and developed into a person, or at least the shell of a person. The prince was surprised by how well the older boy fit his name now that he was out of his glass confines. His all black attire, jelled black hair, and blank eyes rose fear in the prince’s chest and he wanted to smile. It had been a while since he had felt scared. He hoped the Mafic prince would feel the same…no, ten times more when The Shade showed up before him with the intent to kill.

 

“Leader commanded for me to come here,” the Shade said.

 

The prince nodded and stood. He went around his desk and faced the Shade. “Your name, Shade.”

 

“I am Kai. You are our prince?”

 

“Kai,” the prince said letting the name roll along his tongue. Short and sweet and to the point, but the prince hoped his killing method wasn’t the same. He wanted the other prince to experience the torture he deserved. “Yes, I am your prince, I am Sehun.”

 

The Shade bowed his head stopping just above Sehun’s waist. The prince reached out and placed a hand on his head. “Have your received your orders?”

 

Kai stayed in that position. “Yes. I am to kill the Mafic prince.”

 

“That is correct.” Sehun removed his hand.

 

The Shade lifted his head again. The prince noticed they were almost even in height. There was apart of him that wanted to lift himself on his toes so he could look at the top of the Shade’s head when he talked to him. Looking at him eye level unnerved the prince. It always had.

 

“I am not to kill you, however?” the Shade asked.

 

It was an odd question and Sehun wondered himself. The only job of the Shade was to kill a prince. Ideally it should be the opposing team’s prince, but as he thought, there really was no rule against treachery. “Your command was specifically the Mafic prince, not I.”

 

“I understand.”

 

“Besides, there is another that will attempt the same as you, but on me,” Sehun explained.

 

“Then you will die?”

 

The question angered the prince. It had been said without emotion, but Sehun’s mind could not help but hear hope in it. He clenched his fists and remembered the Shade would not understand such a concept as hope, as a desire for something. He was a blank entity with only one mission, like bacteria, a virus. He was a virus that Sehun needed to send away, send to _him_.

 

“Leader sent you here? What for?”

 

“You are to give me an order.”

 

Sehun looked at the clock on his far wall. It was still, neither had moved, but he could feel the gears shift inside. He tried to listen to the ticks, but it was silent. He turned back to Kai. “Go to the Mafic castle, your job begins now.”

 

The Shade bowed again. Sehun watched as his eyes shifted from blank pools of black water into shiny black orbs, like black pearls. The air around him shifted. That was not fear the prince had felt before, this was fear. Staring into those dark orbs he felt as if the Shade had grabbed a hold of his heart and was slowly squeezing it. Was this what he would fill if faced with his own murderer? Would he feel this same fear and dread or was it only in Kai’s eyes that he could feel like this. He almost wished it was this Shade that he would face, that would hold the right to taking his life. He was almost jealous of the other prince to be killed by someone like this. However, Sehun did not plan to die. He would not die, Kai would make sure Mafic lost, and Sehun would make sure he did so.

 

“Then I shall take me leave,” the Shade said and his eyes broke away from Sehun’s. His body disappeared in a black vortex and finally Sehun was free of the restraints of the Shade.

 

“Prince, are you alright?” a voice called out from the hall.

 

Sehun felt his legs go weak and he fell to his knees, a hand going to hold his chest where his heart still beat. The Shade was indeed powerful; it had only been a day since he had heard the news of his awakening, a day for him to collect himself. He wondered if Kai had looked weak when he awoke or if he had been this fearful since he stepped out of the tube. He would have liked to have seen it, the Shade at his weakest.

 

 The door opened and a tall man walked in. Sehun tried to get up, but he still felt weak from just the presence of the Shade. He reached a hand out and the tall man was immediately by his side helping him up. Sehun kept the tall man’s hand in his and stared them.

 

“The Shade was here, Chanyeol.”

 

“I know, he awoke twenty-four hours ago,” the man responded.

 

“You’ve been keeping time?” Sehun looked up at the man. He was tall and a bit awkward, but Sehun had always thought him feminine even if his voice was low and vibrated through his chest.

 

Chanyeol smiled it was a large toothy smile that contorted his face. Sehun made fun of it the first time they meant, but since then he found it was entertaining, one thing he allowed himself to smile at while they prepared for this game.

 

“Suho shouldn’t be the only one made to count the days, he’s busy. Plus, I’ve got nothing else to do,” Chanyeol said.

 

“Because you are the weapon,” Sehun said and squeezed Chanyeol’s hand tighter. He looked at his face seriously and that smile disappeared.

 

Chanyeol nodded and looked down at their hands. “I am the weapon. I am only useful at the end.”

 

“That is correct. You are not useful right now, so you will make yourself useful and do whatever I tell you,” Sehun said. He did not appreciate the unnerving meeting the Shade had done. He needed to reground himself.

 

Chanyeol nodded and continued to stare at their hands. Even though he was taller than Sehun, he looked small right then. Sehun grinned. This was the way he liked to feel. “Take off your clothes.”

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽**

 

 

The Shade was awed by the sensation of being outside. Since waking up twenty-four hours before he had not been allowed outside. The healer had cleaned him and fed him and tucked him into blankets in a room without windows and hat closed his eyes. When he awoke, the healer dressed him and sent him to the leader. He had caught a glimpse of the outside in the leader’s room when he entered before he had been given his full mission. Now with the Kelsic prince’s permission, he was ready to set off and kill the Mafic prince.

 

Kai stood outside the main door of the Kelsic castle. It was dark, as if midnight covered the whole area, slowly becoming afternoon as he looked across the kingdom and to the castle by the see where the Mafic prince lived. He could see an orange orb on the horizon of the sea as if the sun was setting. Or was it rising? Kai was not concerned with time. He had a mission.

 

The feeling of moving through space was strange, stranger than the gel against his skin when he was in the tube. For the milliseconds it took for Kai to move from one place to another, he did not exist, he was just particles, matter, basically dead until he materialized again. It was almost as if he was brought back to life over and over and over as he teleported across the rocks that surrounded the Kelsic castle, the rocks at the bottom of the mountain range the castle was built from.

 

The Shade paused again as he approached the city. The large steal buildings seemed as if empty and disserted, but as Kai looked through the windows, he could see a faint scene of people with faces he did not know as if someone played a holographic movie and suddenly paused it. There was a part of him that, out of curiosity, wanted to look inside the buildings, go adventuring, but something else told him he was not allowed to. The insides of those buildings were not a place for people like him, people who died over and over and over in order just to move. Kai continued on.

 

He was not use to the bright light the on the Mafic side. The dungeon where his tube was house was lit only by the glowing green gel that kept him alive and the lights from the monitors. The brightest light he had seen was that of the lamps hanging from the ceilings as he made his way around the castle, the brightest in the prince’s room. The Shade had to blink a few times every few yards he teleported in order for his eyes to adjust to the brightening light.

 

Eventually, he came to stand twenty yards before the Mafic castle. He turned his head back to look at the Kelsic castle. They were the same, like twins, only mirrored. He needed to find the prince, and with the knowledge of the mirrored structure of the outside appearance, he figured the inside must be the same. He scanned the window, flipping the Kelsic castle around until he landed on the window of one of the towers. Within the same wing of the mirror of that tower was where he had met Sehun. The Mafic prince must be there, too.

 

Kai could feel his chest rise with need. He lifted his hand and stared at each finger. He needed those fingers wrapped around the Kelsic prince’s long neck, to watch that young but old face contort in pain and fear as he squeezed the life out of him. He needed to touch him. The Shade made a fist and looked back up at the castle.

 

Kai could see far, someone walked by a window in the lower corner of the castle, far away from where the Shade was headed. He could not see anyone else, but that did not mean they had not seen him already, that they were not walking where he could not see. It only took him a second to pull into himself, to break down and move, born again in a different place. He landed in the room with the window he had been looking into. There was no sign of a person, but it was only the first room. The prince was definitely somewhere around here, he just had to find where.  He had to find it before he was found, specifically by the guard.

 

The Shade walked across the room and reached out for the handle. He opened the door and started down the hall. It truly was the mirror of the Kelsic castle. He stopped in the middle and closed his eyes. The leader had had him walk and memorize every room in the Kelsic castle. He flipped his memories and wiped away any personal items from the walls and floors leaving empty rooms then opened his eyes. Then, he vanished.

 

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽**

 

 

The healer helped Tao out of the dungeon after Xiumin had finished drilling the Kelsic players’ faces and positions into his head. The Shade still had a hard time walking, his body not use to supporting itself as it had been floating in the glass tube for the past four hundred days. It was a long trip through the halls of the Mafic castle, but Lay was happy with the time he spent with one of Tao’s arms wrapped around his shoulder, his own holding his waist. He missed this.

 

Eventually, the healer brought Tao into his own room and sat him on the bed. He had wrapped a towel from the dungeon around the Shade’s waist for modesty reasons, but now he slipped it off. The Shade fell back onto the bed naked and still. Lay studied him. For someone who had spent the last year in a tube, the Shade’s body was still defined, with a thin waist and strong arms; the gel and tubes preserving him just the way Lay had last seen him. But, he was pale. Had it not been for the slight rise and fall of chest, the healer would have thought the Shade dead.

 

His eyes roamed lower and Lay looked away with heat in his cheeks. He could not allow himself to think of those things. He promised himself he would take care of the Shade when he awoke, make sure his new life was comfortable and that he would have a friend. There was no need to hope for the past again even if it hurt to look at the boy laid out on his bed.

 

The healer walked to another door in his room. He opened it to reveal a closet and dug deep inside. There was a large box buried under piles of clothes he had thrown into the closet or had fallen from their hangers. Lay pulled it out and had trouble tearing the tape away, but eventually the flaps opened. There were packets and packets of small snacks, they use to be his favorite, and Lay wondered if the Shade ate. Eventually, he came to what he was looking for and pulled out a pair of clothes and a sword. He gathered them in his arms and made his way to the Shade.

 

One the bed, the Shade’s eyes were closed, lips slightly parted as if he was asleep. The healer supposed he was, being forced to think and walk so much after just waking up from a four hundred day nap would be tiring. Lay smiled a bit. Like this, he looked so innocent; he looked just as Lay remembered him. He frowned remembering the look in the Shade’s eyes when Xiumin and he had found him in the dungeon. They were black and blank and hardened after Xiumin talked to him. Those eyes made him shiver, those eyes had always made him shiver, but this was different, like the eyes of death himself.

 

Lay put the clothes and sword down on the bed and crawled on. He sat beside Tao and reached a hand out to trace the lines of his face. He really did look like how he had before he became the Shade. His sleeping face was the same, sweet and content, a little cute. They use to run around the castle together, creating mischief. They would go to the city where the citizens lived and shop and buy snacks accompanied by friends until Lay was drafted as the healer and then he volunteered.

 

“Why did you become like this, Zi Tao? You could have been safe.” Lay stared down at the sleeping Shade’s face then leaned in. He pressed his lips softly to his and pulled away. “It hurts.”

 

Lay got up and unfolded the clothes and began to move about, pulling the garments on the sleeping Shade’s body, black pants, a red shirt, and then he laid the sword beside him and stepped back.

 

His heart clenched at the sight. This was the sight of a killer, of an assassin. When Tao woke up, he would be nothing of the boy in the past, all that innocence and love was gone, all the memories. Only his body was what remained of the healer’s younger lover. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Light Saber:**

 

 

 

Darkness covered the room, light coming from one hanging light in the middle creating a circle of fading white on the floor. A young man stood in the middle of the circle surrounded by many silver spheres. Over a white shirt, he wore a silver vest like armor. On his right wrist was a silver band with a ring in the middle and three rings coming out both the top and the bottom. He lifted his hand that housed the band toward one of the spheres. He stared intently before he lifted his hand and the orb lifted with it. He lowered the sphere and turned to a group of them on the other side. They lifted with his hand. The young man moved his hand and the spheres moved with them. He testily wiggled his fingers and the metal spheres moved around each other like juggling. The young man placed the spheres back to the floor and looked around.

 

This was his favorite room. The darkness and isolated light felt comfortable to him. In actuality it was a fairly large room, but the pitch blackness outside the lighted area made it feel small and cozy and the young man enjoyed the closed solidarity. He could not even see the door the entered into the room from his placed in the light; it was as if he lived in his own world. It was his own dimension. There were no windows to hint at life outside and he could pretend nothing else existed. He could pretend he didn’t exist.

 

The young man walked the perimeter of the light and stared at the silver spheres. In each of their shiny surfaces it was as if he could see the reflections of other worlds, of other times. His memories played on the distorted surfaces. Images of EXOTICA danced on some, of the city with its tall steel buildings when people still happily walked between them and covered the roads. Images of EXOTICA, now a ghost world with two mirrored castles on the west and east. Images of the twelve occupants of the kingdom.

 

He lifted this last sphere and brought it close to him. He stared into its reflective mirror like surface and watched as the players formed in a line. His face remained blank as he studied each of theirs. Only be deduction than he even recognized himself. It was not that he did not look the same, for he was often referred to as the prince that did not age for his continuous similar appearance through his growing up, but because he did not feel the same.

 

The young man stared at the face in the silver ball, the face of the Mafic prince. He looked tired and cold. His lips seemed as if they never moved. He was a doll. That was all he was in this game, a doll. He was there simply as a symbol, as something to protect so that the others would fight. He was useless.

 

He dropped the ball and stood in the middle of the light circle and blankly stared down at the floor. Suddenly, he felt the air shift around him. The small warmth the light above gave became cold and he could feel goose bumps crawl across his uncovered arms and the back of his neck. Something gripped at his chest and he became alarmed. He had never felt something like this before. It was hard to breath and he would have screamed for help if he had not denied words until the day he saw that boy again.

 

Something shifted behind him, and the Mafic prince slowly turned his head. Black was all he saw at first, black shifting within the darkness then a face. He did not recognize it at first, he still remembered a much softer face than that of the one that moved by him now all dressed in black, but it was the face he had imagined he would have at this age as he watched them walk behind him until they disappeared into the dark again. He felt the shifting again and then someone was in front of him. It was then that it hit him.

 

Slowly, the Mafic prince turned his head to meet the black eyes of the Kelsic Shade. Fear, he realized that was the feeling he had felt since first sensing the other was there. He immediately took a step back and held up his arms as a sort of shield, his eyes wide as he stared at the boy. This was not the reaction he wanted to have when he met his killer, he did not want to appear as a frightened deer. He was not frightened of what this man would do to him, but fear still gripped him as if it was a must in the presence of the Shade.

 

“You are the Mafic prince?” the Shade asked.

 

He nodded.

 

“I am Kai, the Shade. I am here to kill you,” he announced.

 

The prince nodded again. Then, he felt fingers wrap around his neck. He gasped as they tightened and clawed at the Shade’s hand. Was this how he was going to kill him? Was he simply going to choke him? This would take to long, this was unimpressive. Where was his sword, his knife? He knew the Shade of his own castle would be given such weapons. He looked up at the Shade’s face. He had become handsome.

 

The prince closed his eyes and took a shallow breath as much as he could with the Shade’s hand around his neck. Kai, the name suited him. He opened his eyes and held tight to Kai’s wrist and felt the fear drain away. For the first time in the last four hundred days since the Shades had been put in the dungeons, the prince spoke.

 

“Kill me, Kai.”

 

The Shade’s hands tightened around his neck and he gasped harder, but did not try to remove Kai’s hand. He felt himself lifted off the ground and stare intently as the Shade’s face contorted from calm dark determination to that of anger, teeth bared and eyebrows furrowed. The dark pearls of his eyes seemed to melt back into crashing black pools of water. Where Shades supposed to look like this.

 

 The prince’s heart jerked. He could hear footsteps. He wanted to curse. His eyes pulled away from Kai’s and he looked at the group of silver spheres behind the Shade. He lifted his hand and they lifted with it. Then, he jerked his hand forward.

 

Kai’s face went back into a blank expression and he dropped the prince. His body fell in on itself into a black vortex and he disappeared. The prince watched as the silver spheres charged at him and let out a cry as they hit his body, marking his exposed arms that he used to shield them.

 

The door to his dark room suddenly opened and a dim light filtered in. The Mafic guard looked around nervously until he spotted the prince crumpled on the floor with his practice spheres surrounding him, covered in red marks. The guard flicked the light on and the prince winced at the sudden brightness.

 

“Luhan, are you alright?” the guard asked coming to help pull the prince up.

 

Luhan nodded and dusted himself off. He could have stopped his own attack.

 

“Did you get distracted practicing?”

 

Luhan nodded. He had gotten distracted indeed by a Shade called Kai.

 

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽**

 

Baekhyun wanted to go down to the beach. It was always around this time of day that the Kelsic guard got antsy being in the castle, when the pressure of his position started to get to him, and he would head down to the beach to throw off some steam by teasing the Mafic guard. However, yesterday had been the thirtieth day, the Shades had awoken and that meant Baekhyun had to be alert and concentrate on the area of the castle where the prince would be.

 

He had caught a glimpse of their Shade not too long ago as he was mapping out their castle with the healer. He looked big and bad and powerful, but Baekhyun was not impressed. He looked young and vulnerable, though he had not seen his face. Perhaps that was why he did not feel the fear he should have when thinking about the Shade. And in honesty, he had purposely kept himself from getting close enough to him to really see what made the Shade different from any of them other then the obvious four hundred days locked in a tube in the dungeon.

 

He was bored. There had to be something to do other than guarding Sehun. The prince barely talked to him, always stayed stuck in one of his many rooms usually with Chanyeol or he would sneak off to the sand area on the edge of the darkness that covered the Kelsic side. He had heard him sneak out the day before around this time and that was when he had gone to the beach. Now they were both stuck inside, at least for the first few days until Sehun decided to sneak out and Baekhyun was forced to follow him, to keep him safe and alive from the Mafic Shade who undoubtedly was awake.

 

There was a part of him that wished the other Shade would show up. He was curious to see what he looked like now, what power he had that could control time. It was the awakening of the Shades that had brought the sun to a stop, that had caused the clocks to stop moving. He wondered how his own power would measure up to theirs. How could beam of light, of energy possibly beat someone that could stop time? Was light not controlled by time? No, he remembered, even if vaguely, his classes telling him even light had a limit of time in which it could travel, that nothing could move faster than light. He doubted that though. If you could stop time, or move without fear of time like the Shades, did that not mean you could travel faster than it? Or maybe they weren’t manipulating time at all, only moving around it, only making it seem like time stopped when time actually kept moving and you simply froze.

 

Baekhyun did not like thinking. He thought when he was bored and only ended up confused. Couldn’t he sneak off to the beach? He could find Chanyeol to take over. The weapon did not have much else to do and usually seemed happy enough to be in close proximity with the prince. Of course, Baekhyun knew what close proximity actually was. He also knew Chanyeol was completely happy with it, but he would leave well enough alone. Whatever it was that Chanyeol and the prince did, it benefited all of them in some way, and for Baekhyun, that meant he had someone that he deemed even more capable to take over protecting the prince while he went out and did more productive activities, like practicing and annoying a certain rival.   

 

Baekhyun started down the prince’s halls wondering if Chanyeol was lurking somewhere around like he usually was. However, passing a door he realized he needn’t worry about asking the other to take over as from the voices inside, it seemed he already had.

 

 The guard smiled and started back down the hall. He passed an opened window and stopped. Fresh air blew through it and Baekhyun closed his eyes as he caught a whiff of an ocean breeze. He stepped closer to it and leaned to see if he could not get another smell of the place he so wished to go to. When he opened his eyes, they landed on the end of the beach closest to the Kelsic side. He could make out the beach tree that became his normal place to sit and watched his rival practice. It was always entertaining to watch Chen work.

 

Since young, they had been at each other’s throats in a way even though they weren’t much alike; they simply had the same dream and parallel but contrasting personalities. He was sure Chen hated him, especially after he had volunteered to be on the rival side, in the same position, when choosing for the game had come around. He was surprised of his own choice. He never wanted to be part of the game, but he wanted to beat Chen, he wanted to the better than him, he wanted the other to look at him, to fight only with him. They were rivals after all, and at one point, Baekhyun thought they were friends.

 

Something below caught Baekhyun’s attention. He leaned out the window more and saw black, the Shade. Baekhyun watched as he teleported down the rocks that surrounded the Kelsic castle. He watched with little interest, his bored mind just taking whatever it saw, as he moved farther and farther toward the lighter of the of the kingdom. He lost sight of him for a while when he entered the city and that was when it hit him. Yesterday was the thirtieth day, today was the thirty-first, tomorrow was the thirty-second day. His eyes traveled back to the beach, to the empty area around the beach tree and he wanted to laugh, to laugh at himself for being so stupid. 

 

Chen would not be there at the beach for him to go tease, not today or tomorrow and maybe not ever again. Their Shade was headed to the Mafic castle with the mission to kill their prince. Chen was there to make sure that did not happen. Baekhyun had thought, with the glimpse he had had of the Shade, it would be easy, but now it was real. Killing a Shade was impossible, and now that he thought about it, so was keeping a Shade from killing their princes. For sixty-nine days, it was Chen’s and his job to keep their princes alive. No, he took that back. This could all end sooner as long as one of the princes died.

 

Baekhyun pulled away from the window and headed back to Sehun’s halls. No matter how he felt toward the other guard, this was still a rivalry, the last test to see who was better, and he was determined his prince would not be the one to fall.

 

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽**

 

 

As he walked, random patches of ice appeared on the hall walls. It had been a day since their Shade had awoken. He had quickly visited the healer who was housing the Shade for the time being and gave him instructions for the Shade to visit the prince when he awoke for the last command. He had spent much of the days before in his own quarters, soaking in the last hours of peace and refused to see anyone. Now, he headed back to his quarters already sensing someone waiting for him.

 

The leader stopped in front of an opened door and took in a deep breathe. He needed to reign himself in. If the other man noticed his chaotic feelings it would just be another failure he had as the leader. He took a slow step inside the room and looked around. The white shell walls looked brown from the dim light of a fire in the fireplace, the only light source in the room. There were two high back chairs in front of the fire place and from his view at the door; the leader could only see the front of one, empty. In the other chair, he saw the top of a head.

 

“Come here, Xiumin,” said the one sitting in the occupied chair.

 

The leader moved behind the chair and stood in front of the other. He nodded to the visitor of his wing of the castle before sitting, back straight, face blank.

 

“You don’t have to look like that, I already know you were freezing the hall on your way here, the room got colder,” the man said.

 

Xiumin closed his eyes and slumped his shoulders. He lowered his face to his hands and rubbed it before looking at the man before him. The Mafic weapon was a powerful looking man, tall and sleek and witty. Even if he was a bit younger than Xiumin, the leader couldn’t help but be intimidated by him.

 

“You always notice even when I try to cover it up, Kris.”

 

“You should try harder. You are the leader after all, it is not good to make your feelings known so much, it will make the others feel uneasy.”

 

“I know, I am trying.”

 

The weapon turned his sharp eyes on Xiumin. He had a glass of water in his hand and offered it to the leader. Xiumin took it and watched Kris as he sipped it.

 

“You are usually much better at this, Xiumin; I had started to become convince that you could control your powers from not showing your emotions. I suppose it is the awakening of the Shades that have made it obvious your blank face is a mask for worry.”

 

Xiumin sighed and leaned back into the chair. He looked into the fire dejectedly. “You should have been the leader, Kris. I do not like the idea of someone’s death being my command.”

 

“I do not like that idea anymore than you do. Besides, I would not have the freedom to move about this game as I like if I was the leader. It is better for someone like you, someone innocent to be the leader.”

 

Xiumin chuckled. “Innocent, like you aren’t. You do not fool me, Kris.”

 

“Neither do you fool me. Please take better care not to let the others see your worry and fear so much. I have things I need to establish before my turn in this game, I need you to make sure nothing stands in my way when that happens. You can do that; that was why I did not pursue being the leader when the position was offered.”

 

The leader took another sip of water. “I know that, Kris, it is just hard. You have yet to see the Shade, to see Tao. I could tell how much Lay just wanted to hold him and protect him, how much he was holding back from crying when he started to speak. I would think even for someone as well held up as you would waver seeing him, you two were close after all.”

 

The weapon stood. “Yes and that is why I will not be seeing our Shade until he comes to me.”

 

“Are you leaving?”

 

“Yes, I have things to oversee,” the weapon said and turned.

 

Xiumin stood and reached out, grabbing his arm. “Wait, Kris, stay for a minute.”

 

Kris turned and Xiumin laid his head on his chest, his shoulders started shaking. “You see my weakness all the time, so see it one more time before I close it all off. Let me cry once more before you.”

 

He wrapped his arms around the leader and laid his head on top of his. “One last time.”


	6. Chapter 6

**El Dorado:**

 

 

 

Approaching the prince’s corner of the castle always worked at the weapon’s nerves. Since the first day he had arrived at the Kelsic castle just under four hundred days before he had been filled with a sense of fear and happiness when walking this way. It would be more proper to say it was not the halls and space that gave Chanyeol these emotions, but who this space was owned by.

 

Unlike the rest of the players in the game, Chanyeol did not grow up under royalty with royal blood like the leader and the prince or even worked as a knight like Baekhyun. He had just been a normal citizen living happily in the city. However, was it fair that only those in the castle be held responsible for the game? Though the reason for why the game had began had been lost, everyone knew the start had not been totally at the hands of those in the castles, so they offered one of their own and Chanyeol was entered into the game. He had always wanted to be an entertainer of sorts and what better way to start than with a big impact as part of the kingdom’s longest and most important game.

 

At the time, Chanyeol had not realized how serious it was to be chosen as the weapon until he first met the other players of his castle, minus the Shade. He had never seen royalty before, at least not this up close and was captivated by the sight of the prince. He was snowy white and seemed so delicate, but his eyes were hard and distrustful. The prince reminded him of the small stray animals his sister use to find often roaming around their home, some hurt and all scared. He wanted to make him smile; he vowed to do anything to see the prince smile.

 

The weapon stopped in front of the prince’s office door. He took a deep breath to keep the heat down in his body formed by his nerves and opened the door. The Kelsic prince sat at his desk looking over papers, his pen scratched across the paper occasionally. Electronics had come to a stop for the 100 day game and only the lights and monitors in the dungeons stayed working powered by the two guard’s powers, so the prince was made to use paper for documenting the happenings within the game, the only job the prince had other than to stay alive and any power the other players gave him over them. When the prince lifted his attention to Chanyeol, the weapon bowed.

 

“You called for me, Sehun?”

 

“Yes, what day is it?” the prince asked.

 

“The thirty-fourth,” Chanyeol answered.

 

“And the Shade has yet to return?”

 

“I haven’t heard that he has or that he has completed his mission.”

 

“He has yet to complete it, we would know if he had. This would be over if he had.”

 

“I’m sure he’ll quickly kill the Mafic prince,” Chanyeol tried to assure.”

 

Sehun leaned back in his chair. “Do you want the Mafic prince dead?”

 

“If it’ll end this game.”

 

“It will end if I die, too. Will you let me die if it will end this game?”

 

Chanyeol stared into Sehun’s eyes. They were dark and testing. He could not stare for long, already feeling weak at the knees. “I won’t let you die.”

 

Sehun stood and Chanyeol took a step back. “You have no control over my death; you are not the guard or the Shade.”

 

The weapon shook his head. “I won’t let anyone kill you, Sehun. You have to survive.”

 

“Chanyeol, come here.”

 

Chanyeol looked up and approached the prince. Sehun grabbed his wrist and used the taller boy’s height to pull him off balance and Chanyeol landed stuck between the desk and Sehun. The weapon smiled nervously at Sehun.

 

“Why so close, Sehun?”

 

The prince smirked, the closest Chanyeol had yet seen to a smile from the prince. His breath hitched when he felt Sehun’s hand pressing the tips of his fingers against Chanyeol’s neck. Chanyeol licked his lips and looked down.

 

“You’ve been asking me for this more often. When you call me, it’s not just for me to sit with you.”

 

“Are you complaining? I was under the impression you wanted it.” The prince began to remove his hand. Chanyeol quickly caught his hand and pressed it flush against his skin.

 

“No, no. I do want it.”

 

Sehun moved back, his chair pushed to the side and he crossed his arms and stared Chanyeol down. “Then strip.”

 

He was taller, his voice was deeper; all those things were nothing when it came to Sehun’s command. His words delved deep under Chanyeol’s skin and brought out the traits people forgot after the first time meeting him. Yet, Sehun had not forgotten.

 

“You are tall, but you are kind of feminine, no?”

 

The first words the prince had ever spoken to him, Chanyeol could still remember them. They were true, at least when it came to him. Chanyeol stripped and leaned back against the prince’s desk. He tried not to show his nerves, his excitement, but he had not had practice with this sort of thing before arriving. His chest still rose and fell quickly and heat blushed his skin as the prince gazed upon him. Sehun’s fingers reached out and moved across his chest and arms just touching. Chanyeol bit his lip as the prince’s fingers brushed across his nipples. He could not make a sound. Any noise would break the trance the prince was under when performing these actions on the weapon. Chanyeol had learned that the prince was yet in complete control of his powers and could hurt him if anything caused his mood to change. He was most vulnerable in these moments before he took Chanyeol.

 

Chanyeol let out a low quiet sound of surprise when he was suddenly turned and bent over the desk. He wanted to complain, to beg to watch the prince’s face once when they did this, but he was afraid they would never do it again if he spoke and angered Sehun. He could not risk that. Dark rooms, blindfolded, as long as Chanyeol was not allowed to see his pleasured face, it was fine.

 

The fingers felt numb in his backside, he was use to their quick rough abuse by now and laid his top half across the desk quietly. He grunted when he felt the prince enter him and move without waiting. It hurt, but Chanyeol learned to take a masochistic pleasure to the initial pain of penetration. The desk moved and Chanyeol could hear Sehun’s pleasured sounds as he moved in and out if he kept his own moans quiet.

 

Chanyeol had been gagged the first time they did this, gaggled and jumped in the prince’s dark bedroom after being summoned there at night. He had not fought back; he had guessed what the younger man had planned by the constant groping and abuse he obtained when alone with the prince for the first month after meeting him. He felt like a pet – he knew he was not yet a lover – and Sehun was his master. Being the weapon left him days and days with only odd jobs as he waited for the end. Therefore, he was content with being the prince’s pet.

 

Heat poked in his own stomach and Chanyeol could hardly keep from begging for more, to release. The hairs on the back of his neck rose and Chanyeol knew Sehun sense it as well, his need; Chanyeol could tell he was smiling. He always smiled when they did this. Chanyeol hated he was not permitted to see it.

 

The air in the room shifted, became not colder, but Chanyeol would describe it as emptier. Sehun’s rhythm slowed and Chanyeol could feel his smile drop.

 

“Do you plan to stay and watch, Kai, or is there something you need?”

 

Kai, the name of the Shade. Chanyeol was not sure if he should hide or greet, so he just stayed still in place, not bothering to look at the Shade.

 

It was a few seconds before the Shade replied. “I came back to report after spending the past few days mapping the Mafic area. I did not under the air coming from this room.”

 

“If you understand now, then leave.”

 

A few more seconds past before Chanyeol felt the air shift. He barely got a chance to breathe before the prince began to move, harder and faster, filling him up only to continue. All Chanyeol could do was try not to moan.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽**

 

 

The air in the hall shifted into a black mass until the body of the Kelsic Shade appeared. He stood still and silent outside the prince’s office door still not understanding exactly what he had witnessed. The man bent over the desk was the Kelsic weapon, Kai deducted. He and the prince were connected and the prince had smiled about it. Kai had not expected to see the prince smile. The Shade’s lips twitched up slightly before settling back down into a slightly down curved line. It must be hard to smile. Smiling meant you liked something, so the prince must have liked what they were doing though he was making strange noises.

 

There was something in the back of Kai’s mind that told him he knew what he had witnessed between the weapon and the prince, but he just could not think farther, everything seemed blocked and he turned and left. Whatever it was they were doing had no affect on his job. It did not hinder his goal to kill the Mafic prince.

 

Someone was calling him. The Shade could hear the voice not far from the prince’s section of the castle, the voice of the leader. He pinpointed the location and teleported ending up at the end of the hall. He could see both the leader and the guard standing on opposite ends of the hall and teleported closer.

 

“You called for me?” Kai asked and turned to look at the leader.

 

Suho nodded. “Yes, you have not been around lately, where were you?”

 

“I was in Mafic territory.”

 

“And what were you doing in the Mafic territory?”

 

“Mapping the area, looking.”

 

Suho nodded. “Alright, but it is dangerous to be there for too long. The guard will try to kill you if he can.”

 

“I doubt he will be able to kill you, but it would be better not to who your face in front of him,” the Kelsic guard said not looking at Kai’s face. “I mean, I am on your side, but I have an urge to go after you myself just standing in your presence.”

 

Kai examined the Kelsic guard. He had only caught a glimpse of him before while mapping out the area of the Kelsic castle. The older boy would not look at him and his thin body seemed tense. However, Kai could not look away. He felt as if he had to watch the other’s moves when they were close, he felt as if he should run. The Shade nodded to him and turned back to the leader.

 

“We have yet to feel any presence of the Mafic Shade, but I am sure he will be here soon. Even if you were careful, I believe the others already know you are active. You need to quickly do your job, Kai,” Suho said.

 

Do his job. Kai looked down at his hands. He could remember them wrapped around the Mafic prince’s neck. He could remember the soft feeling of his skin against his hands. He could remember the sound of the prince’s voice when he asked to be killed. He wanted to feel it and hear it again.

 

“I have sixty-five days left,” Kai said.

 

The leader seemed confused by the Shade’s comment. “Yes, but we can not allow the Mafic Shade to kill our prince first.”

 

“I will kill him,” Kai assured. There was no other desire in his mind other than to own the end of the Mafic prince’s life, than have it between his hands.

 

“Alright, if you understand then perhaps you would be willing to practice a little fighting with Baekhyun here. He knows well how the other guard moves and their powers are similar. Chanyeol’s with the prince, he can temporarily take over as the guard. I do not believe the Mafic Shade will be here today.”

 

Chanyeol, the weapon. He was on the prince’s desk. Could he protect from that position? The Shade was not sure about his powers so perhaps he could.

 

Baekhyun sighed and leaned off the wall. “Alright, I will show him some moves and explain things.”

 

Kai’s thoughts became empty as the guard suddenly caused the lights in the hall to go out. “How well do you move in the dark, Shade?”

 

Immediately, the Shade moved, he teleported behind Baekhyun and grabbed his neck. He heard the guard gasp. Perhaps it was hard to smile, but a smirk seemed easy enough to have.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

 

The leader sighed when the lights were suddenly turned off on him. He could understand Baekhyun’s feeling of not wanting to actually see Kai when they fought, the look in the boy’s eyes was unnerving, but he wished he could have waited until Suho had left. Of course, the leader had the halls mapped out, but it took longer to walk in the dark and he was already close to over flowing and walking in the dark just made him more annoyed.

 

Suho was glad when he finally ended up in the still lighted hallways, even more glad when he saw the healer standing outside his door. The leader walked up to him and automatically reached out for the healer’s hand.

 

“You called for me?” D.O asked.

 

“Yes,” Suho said and looked down at D.O’s hand. He played with it a bit before holding it tight in both of his. “Kai came back just now, and I have yet to feel that the Mafic Shade has been here, and there’s still sixty-five days left, and I need you.”

 

The healer placed his other hand on top of Suho’s. “I understand, I’ll comfort you.”

 

“D.O, why do you say it like that?”

 

The healer turned away and opened the door to Suho’s bedroom and walked in. “Is it not like that?”

 

Suho closed the door behind them and wrapped his arms around the healer’s shoulder, resting his face against his neck, words whispered against the flesh there. “It is, but it is more. Kyungsoo, you are more.”

 

D.O gasped at the touch. “You called me by my real name. We are not supposed to do that. Only Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and the princes kept their names.”

 

“Every now and then, I want to be reminded that we are real, that we are not just the pieces of this game, and that we have lives to go back to when this is all over.”

 

D.O turned in the leader’s arms and hugged him back. “I want to go back to that life, too, Junmyun. I do not want to be confused on whether I bring comfort to you when I am around you because I am the healer or because I am yours.”

 

Suho moved and cupped the healers face in his hands. “I know. I need you right now. Do you need me, too?”

 

The healer reached a hand up and tightly grasped Suho’s shirt. He looked into the leader’s eyes with his own wide ones, searching. “Yes, yes I need you, too.”

 

The leader leaned down and pressed his lips to D.O’s. They moved to the bed in a tangle of light presses of lips and slow tugs of clothes until they were both naked and under the sheets of the leader’s bed. Suho nestled himself between the D.O’s legs and hovered above him looking down at the healer’s worried but flushed face. Memories before the game, before the training, surfaced. D.O’s face had always been like this, always, nervous and pink since the first day they became lovers, but since the game began, the touching became a need not a want. All Suho wanted as he moved into the healer, was for everyone to get out of this happy.

 

If he had not give the command for the Shade to kill the prince, would the one hundred days still pass by normally, or would even their time pause until the command for death was given? He thought about locking Kai up, locking the Mafic’s Shade up, too if he could, but they would escape, their powers were something that could not be stopped. They should have never awoken.

 

Suho moved with deep smooth thrusts, eyes fighting to flutter close with pleasure or continue to stare down at the younger man below him. His muscles rippled with the exercise, sweat coating his body and he felt a tension slowly easing out of him. With all the pleasure, he could not think other than the corner of his mind he left for counting the seconds, the minutes, the hours of each day of the game and his thoughts about the healer below him. His mind was only filled with time and D.O and he finally felt at ease for the first time since the Shade awoke.

 

The tightening and sudden euphoric loosening in Suho’s body as he came inside the healer left his mind feeling refreshed and a moved a bit longer until he heard D.O’s cry of release and the call of his name, his real name. He pulled out and lay down on his back, catching his breath. The healer turned and rested his head on Suho’s chest and Suho held him there, enjoying the comforting air that surrounded him. He wanted to whisper those words, the three words he used to before they were chose, but he was afraid how the healer would take them while they were playing the game. Suho wanted his lover to believe him when he said I love you. 

 


	7. Beautiful

**Beautiful:**

 

 

 

Another five days passed. Baekhyun wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket as he started a round through the halls of Sehun’s quarters. He had just gotten back from another practice with the Shade. Five days straight being around the Shade was starting to show their signs on the guard. He felt sick and weak caused by the nerves of knowing one of the game’s assassins were so close. He always ended up cutting their practices short when he could not handle being caught in those deathly hands. It was not the Shade’s job to capture the guard, but to run, but Kai seemed to find it fun to grab Baekhyun while they practiced in the dark, or to sneak up behind him and tap his shoulders. The guard was terrified and amused by the Shade’s antics; more terrified than amused because it confused him. He had never thought that a Shade could have fun. This was a game, but definitely not a fun one. Maybe it was only fun to the Shade who had no memories of a life outside of the game.

 

He wondered if perhaps Kai had been so playful in his previous life.

 

Baekhyun stopped and looked down at his hands. They were slightly marked up from the overuse of his powers, dark lines appearing along the creases where his light power burnt into them. They would disappear soon, only a temporary blemish, but he wondered, when the other Shade showed up, would his hands be completely burnt then? How long would it take for them to heal after a real fight with the Mafic Shade, not just a play fight like with Kai?

 

The guard’s attention was pulled away from his hands when he heard a door open. He peaked around the corner ahead of him and saw the weapon emerge from the prince’s practice room. He was rumpled; shirt wrinkled and jacket trailing on the ground as he carried it in one hand, mahogany colored curls sticking out in random directions. His tall frame limped slightly as he started down the hall.

 

Baekhyun frowned at the sight. He took a quick look around before decided to approach the weapon.

 

“Chanyeol!”

 

The weapon jumped and slowly turned. Baekhyun was expected to be greeted with the usual bright smile the taller player always gave him, but he was surprised to see a forced shaking one instead.

 

“Hey Baekhyun,” Chanyeol greeted.

 

The guard placed his hands on his hips, ignoring the slight sting the fabric of his pants caused on his healing hands. “Something is wrong, tell me.”

 

Chanyeol shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong.”

 

The weapon’s deep voice was soft; it made him seem small, like a child. Baekhyun did not like this. When the guard had first met Chanyeol, he had been a bundle of laughter and playfulness. Baekhyun had been much the same before the game and they were also the same age so they had become friends quickly, but as time went on with Chanyeol living in the castle, the weapon’s happy countenance began to waver. Baekhyun noticed this most when the weapon would come back from meetings with their prince. It took a few months for Baekhyun to realize why that was. His first reaction was to lecture Chanyeol, being the older one, but he realized it was not the weapon’s doing and he understood Chanyeol had reasons. Besides, even if he did not approve of it or understand it, he understood enough to know that he needed to allow the weapon this, just as Chanyeol had learned not to ask him about why Baekhyun always went to the beach.

 

But, today they needed to talk, Baekhyun needed to talk, to calm his nerves.

 

The guard sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “You just did that with him, I can tell.”

 

Chanyeol licked his lips and moved his jacket around, shaking it out before slipping it on. “I don’t have to tell you that.”

 

“It was not a question.”

 

“Why are we talking about this, Baekhyun?”

 

“Because I need to talk,” the guard admitted and turned, hoping the other would follow.

 

Chanyeol’s long legs quickly fell instep beside Baekhyun. “You’ve been with the Shade?”

 

“Yeah,” Baekhyun said and held out his hands. “He is a lot more playful than I though he would be. I did not figure someone with only one goal would make me work so much.”

 

Chanyeol took one of his hands gently into his own larger one and just held it lightly. “I don’t see why the Shades can’t have fun, too, you know. Don’t they deserve it, being in those tubes for so long and all the other stuff they had to go through?”

 

“I guess you would think that,” Baekhyun said and took his hand away going over to a window, one that looked toward the beach. He took a big breath, catching the scent of the ocean breeze and dangled his hands out into the air.

 

“You’re right; I don’t know that much about it.”

 

“That was not what I meant. It is good for you to be from the city, from out of the castle, you are more innocent than the rest of us like that.”

 

“I guess. Baekhyun, did you know the Shade before he was like this?”

 

Baekhyun turned toward Chanyeol, leaning against the window’s ledge. “No, at least I can not remember his face. I wonder where he came from, too. I think Suho and D.O knows, probably Sehun, too, they are all royals after all, with the blood and everything, I was just a knight.”

 

“Sehun knows?” Chanyeol asked and looked a bit hopeful.

 

Baekhyun turned back to look out the window. “He will not tell you. He does not talk much, well maybe to you, but I would not know.”

 

“He doesn’t talk much to me either, well he does sometimes, mostly after he’s…well, after, but it is stuff I don’t really understand. He never gives anything a name, so it’s confusing.”

 

Baekhyun sighed. He wished he could go out to the beach. It was that time of day, was it not? But, there was no use, Chen would not be there. “Do you like sleeping with the prince? Does it not hurt?”

 

“It…I’ve gotten use to the physical pain…I can live with the other pain though, because…because I love Sehun. You can understand that, right?”

 

With one final forlorn glance out the window, Baekhyun pulled away ready to continue his duties. “Yes, weirdly I do.”

 

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

 

After five days of practice with the Kelsic guard, Kai decided to venture out again. He knew enough to understand that killing the Kelsic prince was a high priority, but he did not understand the rush. He could kill him, he had no question in mind about that, he had that ability, and after practicing with Baekhyun, he believed it would not be hard to get around the Mafic guard as well. Actually, it was quite fun. He was not sure what fun meant all too well, but he had heard the guard say it once and decided that anytime he smirked he was having fun.

 

He teleported across the city, passed the tall frozen metal structures, until he was once again standing before the Mafic castle. He closed his eyes and flipped the image of his own dwelling, clearing the rooms and chose one in the prince’s quarters, the office where he had come across the prince and the weapon in a strange position. When he opened his eyes, he was staring outside the door to the office. Kai frowned, having fallen short of his goal. It must have been because he remembered that scene. He should not think when teleporting, he should not think about that, but he had been. Occasionally he would see something that triggered that thought and he would stand still and ponder it, but eventually his brain would force him to stop, telling him he could not think farther. That part of thought was not for him.

 

Kai teleported again, this time he landed within the office room, just on the other side of the office door. The Mafic prince sat at his desk scrawling a pen across paper. The Shade studied him for a moment. The prince’s head was tilted down, one hand holding it up while he wrote. His fluffy brown hair covered most of the top half of his face, but Kai could see his long eyelashes fluttering as if fighting sleep. His eyes traveled farther down, traveling the curve of the prince’s small nose and to his small pouted lips, opened slightly in breath. He suddenly thought ‘beautiful’. What did that word mean?

 

The prince suddenly lifted his head. His eyes went wide when he saw Kai and his mouth opened. The Shade immediately moved teleporting behind the prince and clamped over his mouth. He leaned down and whispered into his ear. “Do not scream.”

 

The prince nodded and Kai slowly moved his hand away.

 

“I was not planning to scream,” the prince said. He sat perfectly still in his seat staring forward.

 

Kai lifted his hands and wrapped them around the prince’s soft slender neck. The prince tilted his head and let out a small sigh, eyes fluttering closed. The Shade started to apply pressure around his neck and the prince whined softly.

 

“Do you want to die?” Kai asked, squeezing his fingers tighter around the prince’s neck.

 

The prince shook his head. Kai loosened his hands a bit thrown off by the answer. The prince had told him to kill him the last time they met.

 

“Then, why are you not fighting back?” People did not want to die, was Kai’s understanding. They should be afraid, the prince should be afraid. “Are you not scared of me?”

 

“I am not scared of you,” the prince answered. He lifted his own hands from where they were settled on his lap and placed them against Kai’s hands around his necks, squeezing them tighter around his neck. “Kill me.”

 

The touch of the prince’s hands on his made the Shade recoil. He pulled his hands back and walked away from the prince. He moved half way across the room before he felt at a comfortable distance from the prince. “You ask me to kill you, but you do not want to die.”

 

“That is correct. I do not want to die, but I want you to kill me.”

 

“If I kill you, you loose.”

 

The prince shook his head. “No, I can not loose if I am dead. If I am dead I do not exist. It is everyone else that looses.”

 

“Do you wish for the game to end then? If you die, the game ends.”

 

The prince stared down at his papers. His face seemed to drop and he seemed far away. “I wish that game never existed. If I die then he does not loose.”

 

“Then there are other ways to die,” Kai said. He did not understand why the prince was so cooperative in allowing him to kill him. Something in Kai’s mind urged him to just continue with it, but something else wanted to understand.

 

The prince’s eyes suddenly met his. “No, you must do it. It has to be your hands or I will not die.”

 

The Shade did not understand what fear felt like only what it looked like; he was not designed to know fear but to cause it. However, looking into the Mafic prince’s eyes, he felt fear. He wanted to look away, but he felt caught and moved slowly closer to the prince as if being pulled in by the sad insistent look in his eyes. It was as if he knew something that Kai had forgotten. The Shade stopped in front of his desk.

 

“Why must I do it?” Kai asked.

 

“Because…why do you ask so many questions?” the prince said, face changing into an expression of confusion.

 

Kai felt the same way, confused. For a Shade, everything was black and white, but this, this was murky and gray and his mind felt painful trying to think. “You…confuse me.”

 

The prince looked away. His hands came and clutched at the edge of his desk. “Do not talk like that, like you have thoughts. You are the Shade; your only job is to kill me, so do so quickly. I can not stand you asking me questions.”

 

The prince was angry. Kai was surprised by that. He leaned across the desk and wrapped his arms around the prince’s neck again.

 

“Ah.” The small sound of surprise escaped the prince’s lips and Kai squeezed harder. The prince’s eyes closed and he relaxed in his grip. The only sign of nervousness was his shaky grip on Kai’s wrists as he lifted his hands.

 

The Shade stared at his face and that word came into his mind again. Beautiful. His hold slackened and moved to grip the prince’s face. “Beautiful…you are...”

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

Lay had not seen much of the Mafic Shade in the past week days. When Tao had awoken, the healer had been out, doing his usual runs. He had stayed in his room after that, saddened with the fact he had not been there when his ex-lover woke up. The healer knew he should not think of Tao like that, but the memories were still so fresh. There were no words of ending things when he became the Shade, just one day, Lay learned his lover had volunteered to be the Shade and before he could talk to him about it, he was already in the tube.

 

He use to spend time in the dungeons just staring at the glass tube filled with that green gel and Tao’s sleeping face. Sometimes he got caught and scolded, but he still went back. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred days passed before he just stopped going completely. There was no point in staring into the sleeping face of the boy who would not remember him when he awoke. He would no longer be his, but a vessel, just a body. He wondered if Tao’s body would even remember him, remember moving against his, and remember the feel of Lay’s nails scraping down his back as they made love. He would not remember, right? Everything about him was changed.

 

It was a surprise when Lay suddenly ran into the Shade while doing his rounds. Tao was still dressed in the same red shirt and black pants Lay had put him in after waking up. He held a sword in one hand and a pole in the other. His black hair was plastered to his forehead and there were wet stains on his shirt. Lay took a step back and looked down the hall. There was an area there that was dark and empty, a perfect practicing place. Had that been where the Shade had been spending his days, in the practice room. He was filthy now, and probably smelled, too. He wondered if anyone had talked to him, if he had visited the prince yet to get his final orders. He had not heard anyone saying their Shade had made his way to the Kelsic castle.

 

“You are dirty,” Lay said, his first words to the Shade since he had fallen asleep on his bed ten days ago. He reached out and grabbed Tao’s hand, pulling him along. “I will give you and change of clothes and you should bathe. Has no one told you where everything was yet?”

 

“I walked around,” the Shade responded and that made Lay pause. His voice sounded the same. It was not that empty confused voice from when he broke free of the tube, this was his voice. The healer shook himself.

 

“Right, well you should still take care of yourself. I will feed you as well.”

 

“Alright. Do you have cake?”

 

Cake? Lay could not help but smile. So the Shade knew what cake was. “Yes, yes I have cake.”

 

The healer led Tao into his room and once again sat him on his bed. He began to remove the Shade’s clothing, throwing the sweat soaked clothes off to the side. He went into his closet and dug out another outfit for the Shade. Lay walked back over, a towel and new clothes in hand, but dropped them when his eyes landed on the Shade’s lap. Could the Shade react like that? His cheeks felt a little red seeing Tao’s length erect. He wondered when that had happened as he had been trying not to look at that area while undressing the shade. Perhaps it was just a natural reaction, even if he was mostly an empty body; he was a body that was alive after all.

 

Lay reached down and picked up the clothes and towel and placed them on the Shade’s lap to cover him up. He cleared hit throat and gestured toward his bathroom. “You should take a shower, a cold one would be best.”

 

“Take one with me.”

 

The healer was surprised by the request, but even more surprised by the look on Tao’s face when he turned to him. The Shade was smiling, it was not an empty smile, though it still did not seem quite all the way there, but it was definitely a resemblance to the smile that Tao would give Lay before he became the Shade, the smile he had when he wanted something.

 

“I am sure you can bath yourself,” Lay said shaking his head. It must just be a body memory, a glitch in the transformation.

 

“Yixing.”

 

Lay froze hearing his real name for the first time in over four hundred days. “You know my name?”

 

The Shade reached out and grabbed Lay’s wrist, pulling him into his lap. His hands came up and cupped the older’s face, still smiling. “Bathe with me, Yixing.”

 

If he had not promised himself not to cry during the game, to stay happy, Lay would have cried hearing Tao say his name. “You…you remember me?”

 

Tao nodded. “I do not have other memories, but I have memories of you…of you and me.”

 

“Zitao…you remember us?”

 

The Shade nodded. “Yes, I remember that was my name and you were…are, mine.”

 

The healer wanted to say more, but he suddenly felt the other’s lips on his and instinctively kissed back.  He did not understand how Tao had memories of him. His time in the tube should have erased all of that, should had made him an empty being with only the goal to kill the prince of the opposing team. Why did he know him?

 

Lay could not bring himself to care though, when he was lifted up by Tao and carried to the bathroom, still kissing. He supposed he would have to give into the younger’s demand to bathe together for now and ask questions later. He missed his lover’s touch too much to deny it after four hundred days.


	8. My Lady

**My Lady:**

 

 

 

The weapon usually had the easiest job out of all the players acting as a gopher to the other players until their time came; however, Kris did not see his job that way. With the free reign he had as the weapon, he moved around to his own liking, tracking the other players. Often, he took on a few of the leader’s jobs, specifically the counting of seconds when Xiumin slept. He tapped his finger against his leg as he made his way through the halls of the Mafic castle. Usually, Xiumin was good at keeping time, but he was a deep thoughtless sleeper at times and had messed up before when he woke up. He also tended to put things off, like checking up on the Shade. Kris deemed it was time he greeted the Shade anyways and so headed of to check up on him while the leader slept.

 

Kris figured the most obvious place to find the Shade would be in the healer’s quarters. Even had he not know about the healer’s and Shade’s past relationship before the game, Lay was the type to take care pf people; motherly in a way, and would most likely fret over the Shade. Those characteristics were why he had been chosen as healer after all. The weapon walked down the halls listening into the rooms for any sound of life. He stopped when he came to the bedroom area having heard footsteps. The door to the healer’s bedroom opened and a shirtless Shade walked out dragging his weapons and shirt behind him. He looked up and his dark eyes met Kris’.

 

The weapon felt something stir in him as he gazed up on the Shade. Images flashed across his mind of times before they were chosen for the game. He could remember the Shade soaked as he sat in a mud buddle with his a wooden sword and a pole half the length he had now scattered around him having slipped while practicing in the rain even when the other knights in training had left. He could remember reaching a hand out to help pull the boy up and taking him in for a change of clothes and tea. Kris remembered holding his hand as they walked along the beach, the Shade sobbing, whipping tears from his eyes with scraped up hands.

 

The Shade tilted his head and his lips began to move. “I remember you.”

 

Kris walked closer to the Shade. “What do you remember about me, Tao?”

 

The Shade shifted and ran a hand through his dark hair. The movement brought Kris’s attention to his neck where he noticed small red marks. Tao let out a soft groan before answering.

 

“You held me once because of Yixing refused me, told me to let him think on my confession for a while and then try something a little different.”

 

“You remember Lay than?”

 

“Yes, he is my lover.”

 

“Do you only remember the things that have to deal with him?” Kris continued.

 

The Shade nodded. “I remember our deal.”

 

Kris smirked. “Good. Have you seen the prince?”

 

“No, I thought I should practice and talk with you first.”

 

“Well then, come with me,” Kris said. He turned and waved for Tao to follow him. He began to walk and a few seconds later he heard footsteps falling in behind him.

 

The weapon could not help but to be irked with the knowledge that Tao could only remember him in concern with the memories he had of the healer, his lover. He should not have been so put off by it; this had been part of the deal after all. He was lucky any memory of him was left in the younger’s mind. Tao could have ended up like the other Shade – a body without a thought, only a purpose. But, there was always the possibility that way may have been better.

 

Kris stopped before the door to his sitting room. He opened it and allowed Tao to enter first. The Shade walked inside and moved over to the fireplace where a low fire continued to burn casting the room in a dim orange glow. The Shade placed his weapons by the only chair beside the fireplace and took his shirt to slip it on. The weapon moved to take a sea in the chair and pulled the Shade’s sword into his lap. He stood it up straight and stared at his reflection in the shiny metal.

 

“Do you remember how to use these still?”

 

“I do not, but I remember how to move with them. My body knows.”

 

“I suppose your body knows how to move with Lay as well,” Kris mused. It was obvious the activities the Shade had been in prior of stepping out of the healer’s room.

 

The Shade nodded. “I also remember in my mind, scenes. I just had to copy them and follow the urges.”

 

“So you have other urges then to simply kill.” Kris threw the sword to Tao. The Shade caught it without much effort. “You have gotten quite a bit out of our deal, more than I had planned.”

 

“I do not remember what you know, but I know you know a lot more than the rest of us about this game, so I am unsure of what you planned.”

 

Kris leaned back and crossed his legs. “I know and my plans are not the concerns of the Shade.”

 

“Having I as the Mafic Shade is a part of your plans though?”

 

“Of course. You wanted to keep Lay safe when he was recruited.”

 

“It is more likely that the healer will die before the end of the game compared to the recorded deaths of other players. All deaths part of keeping the prince alive.”

 

“And to keep that from happening to Lay, you will kill the Kelsic prince, be the first Shade to succeed.”

 

“Yes. And you gave up the leader position?”

 

“In order to allow your memories, I needed a freer position. Being the weapon suits me. Besides, you should not complain, I have given you the memories you wanted the most. It must have been difficult on you, though, trying not to think about your most precious person as you were brainwashed. I could only stop the machines that controlled that portion of your transformations once the game started. Thoughts of Lay had to be the last to go.”

 

“I understand. I also understand I am at a disadvantage against the other Shade because of that. I am indebted to you.”

 

Kris looked toward the flames in the fireplace. He had always been a stoic person, facial expressions trained to express only what he needed to show at any given time. However, he never expected to feel this cold inside, as if the leader’s powers were housed in his heart. His reflected twin he had seen in Tao’s blade seemed to express who he had become because of the game better than the flesh body he paraded around in. But, unlike the Shade’s transformation, a sudden pull a year before the game, Kris’s transformation began since his birth.

 

“Yes, you can protect Lay and love him because of me, so make sure we do not loose. You have sixty days, now take these orders to our prince and you will officially begin your duty as the Shade.”

 

“I will go to the prince and begin my duty as the Shade.”

 

Kris looked up at the Shade and narrowed his eyes. Tao’s face was blank, black orbs steely set in his slanted eyes. It had been years since Kris had felt like this, fear that immobilized him even for a second. It was the first time Kris had really looked at the Shade as the killer he had become and not the boy that use to be his friend, the younger brother he was refused as a prince of EXOTICA.

 

“I have one request before I depart.”

 

Kris reached down and picked up Tao’s pole, extending it to him. “I will let you request one thing of me.”

 

“I do not remember your name. What are you called now?”

 

Kris dropped the pole just out of Tao’s reached, but the Shade quickly moved the catch it. He did not remember his name. “I am Kris, the Mafic weapon.”

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

The rooms were always colder in this part of the castle. It might have been hard to tell for most, but Luhan could feel the difference. It was not because he was walking in the halls of the south wing of the castle. It was because this section of the south wing was where the leader’s quarters were. The prince very much liked this area because of the slight coldness and it was not that far from his own rooms. At times, Luhan could feel the cooler air travel down to his own bedroom and lull him to sleeps on nights when his eyes refused to close. There was just something about knowing why that coldness was there that was comforting, knowing someone was letting their emotions control them.

 

Others might have just thought there was a draft coming through the walls or the lack of windows made it cooler, but Luhan knew differently. It was because of the leader’s powers leaking without his knowledge. It was not always there; the cold air around their leader, but at times when he was comfortable, and it seeped out like a blanket to rap around Xiumin. Luhan found it interesting, having a power that could comfort you. He found himself a bit jealous of it. What did it feel like to still be warm inside and be wrapped in ice? The prince would not know, he had long let feelings go. Even if he survived this game, he could not see himself becoming warm again. He would die, or would he turn to stone. If he just stood still and silent, did not eat or drink, if the Shade did not kill him, would he turn to stone when the one hundred days went by? And then they could carry his petrified body as use it as his own tomb stone and he could be a cold thing wrapped in the warmth of the sun. But stone could not feel the warmth; warm flesh could feel the bite of frost though.

 

The prince lifted his arms to wrap around himself as he continued down the hall to the leader’s bedroom. He had been asked to watch over Xiumin as he napped. Luhan did not mind, the leader had once been a friend of the same age before Luhan deemed any human relationship null when the game players were chosen. He himself had always known he would be chosen as prince, both the princes knew of their positions, but you did not tell a child that being the princes in the game met they were the targets for death. They had thought it was like any other game, that they would have the most power, they would be the strongest. What was strong about being a target, like a precious jewel waiting to be stolen? But, without them there would be no point for the game. Perhaps they were the strongest.

 

Luhan reached his hand out and opened the door to Xiumin’s bedroom. The walls were white and frost crackled on them in small patches giving the area a blue tint. The leader was but a curled up lump in the middle of his canopied bed, white blanket pulled up around him looking much like a sort of dough pastry the healer had taken a liking to cooking for them when anyone bothered to actually eat.  Luhan moved over and sat at the head of the bed and gazed down at their sleeping leader. He seemed almost peaceful, face completely still other than a small quiver of his lips every second, probably his unconscious way of keeping time. The prince reached out a hand and lightly ran it along one of the leader’s fully cheeks. He poked it and the skin sunk in a bit. He continued to do it, fascinated with the deepening of the flesh wondering if it would bruise. Was this what it looked like, Kai’s fingers pressing into the skin of his neck?

 

The prince removed his hand and stared down at the leader for a few more minutes before he stood up. He lifted his hands and stared at the smooth delicateness of them, only small traces of hard labor showing on them. He lifted them and wrapped them around his neck, squeezing. It was not the same. His hands did not hold the same pressure; they did not fit the same. He moved his hands down from his neck, down his chest then locked them together. They did not fit the same way.

 

There was suddenly a knock on the door. Luhan’s attention snapped away from his hands and he looked towards the door. He felt something shift, the air. It felt almost familiar and his heart began to clench. He moved his hands back up to his neck and turned. Dark eyes, dark hair, the same deathly look in their eyes, but it was different.

 

“Luhan, the prince?” the new comer asked.

 

Luhan nodded. This must be the Mafic Shade, the one that was to kill the other prince. Luhan took a step away from him and looked around. He wanted to leave.

 

The Shade suddenly kneeled and tilted his head in a sort of boy. “Prince, I am here for my final orders.”

 

No, he did not want to give them, he could not. Luhan shook his head.

 

The Shade looked at him curiously. “Do…you not speak, prince?”

 

The prince nodded.

 

“Then I will recite the order you are to give me and you can nod. I can not go on if you do not allow me to,” Tao said.

 

Luhan was a bit confused by this Shade. It seemed he had already been informed. Who had spoken to him, Luhan was not sure. He knew Xiumin had not seen the Shade since his awakening and he himself tried to stay clear of the other players if possible. He nodded though; there was no way around this.

 

“I am to kill the prince of the Kelsic castle. Are these your orders?” the Shade asked.

 

Luhan closed his eyes. They were the strongest now that he thought about it. They were pretty jewels waiting to be stole, but it was their words that set the stealing a go. It was their words against each other that began the game. The prince nodded.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

 

Beautiful. That word still bothered Kai as he made his escape from the Mafic castle. He had called the prince beautiful. For a day, the Shade spent his time walking around the city of EXOTICA in search of the meaning of that word. What else did you call beautiful? He did not awaken knowing this word, it was not something he was taught and a part of him felt it was not important, but he was curious. What if it helped him, gave him an advantage in killing the Mafic prince? He was not in a rush to kill him, but he felt he needed to know.

 

He walked past the windows of the steel buildings in the city, not wanting to miss any sign that would trigger him to think that word by simply teleporting. He looked into the glass, seeing the reflection of other people, like pictures caught in the glass. He saw men and women and children and studied their faces, studied their clothes. Other words surfaced words like pretty and nice, words Kai did not understand. However, he could understand that they were different variations of each other like the light difference between Kelsic and Mafic. Yet, he still did not understand what made something nice, pretty, beautiful.

 

He began to walk around an area with grass and trees, a park. Was this pretty? It was nice? He stopped upon reaching a patch of grass with little color full stems growing out of it. Flowers. Flowers were pretty. His attention was pulled to the side where other of these ‘flowers’ grew on a bush. They were white and full. Kai reached out and touched one. Its petals were soft like the prince’s flesh and his hand immediately crushed the bud in his grip. He let the white petals fall onto the ground.

 

“Beautiful.”

 

He reached out for another of the flowers. He felt something poking into his fingers but ignored it and snapped the flower off the bush, holding it by the stem. He looked back to the Mafic castle and placed the flower into a pocket of his jacket then teleported. The Shade landed soundlessly into the bedroom of the Mafic prince’s quarters. He looked around, the room pitch black other than the small light that hung close to a bed giving off a soft glow over it and the Shade noted a form lying in the opened canopied bed. Kai pulled the flower out and moved across the room. He knelt down beside the bed and placed the flower close to the sleeping prince’s face. He trailed its soft white petals against his cheek determining the similarities and the differences.

 

The prince’s eyes fluttered and opened. The Shade dropped the rose and crawled on top of the prince. He wrapped his hands around his neck before the prince could scream, squeezing. The prince seemed surprised at first, but quickly calmed in Kai’s hold just as he always did. His eyes looked to the side where Kai had dropped the flower and he weakly moved his hand to pick it up. His lips moved as if saying something and Kai’s grip loosened on his neck.

 

“A rose?” the prince asked.

 

“Is that what it is called?” Kai asked back, his hands slipping a bit farther down the prince’s neck. He tilted his head seeing a small line of red appear on the prince’s creamy white neck. “Red.”

 

The prince looked at him curiously and looked at the rose again. His eyes widened and he grabbed one of Kai’s hands. “You are bleeding.”

 

Bleeding? Blood? Kai moved his hand away from the prince’s grasp and looked at the red trickling from his finger caused by the thorn on the flower the prince had called a rose. He moved that finger and traced along the prince’s neck adding more red there. He moved his finger to his lips and coated them in red. The prince’s eyes fluttered and he could feel him shiver under him. Why was he scared now?

 

Kai leaned back, still straddling the prince on his bed and examined the red he had drawn onto the prince’s white skin. “Beautiful. You are beautiful.”

 

“Please, do not do this. If you are not here to kill me, leave,” the prince said. His eyes were closed and head turned away.

 

The Shade placed his hands on both sides of the prince’s face. “What is it that you are called? I do not know this of the one I will kill.”

 

The prince’s breath caught and his eyes fluttered a bit. “I am…Luhan.”

 

Luhan. Beautiful. “Luhan is beautiful.”

 

The prince shook his head and tried to push Kai away. “No, no you can not say I am beautiful and also say you will kill me. You can not do this, Kai.”

 

The sound of his name from those lips sent a shiver through the Shade’s body and he grabbed Luhan’s hands, pinning them above his head. “Why can I not?”

 

The prince stilled and slowly looked up at him, eyes wavering with emotions that Kai did not know the words for, but the most obvious was fear. Why fear when Kai was not killing him?

 

“You can not do this to me, it is not fair,” Luhan said and glared. “Leave me unless you kill me.”

 

The Shade moved his hands around Luhan’s neck once more, leaving them there for only a few second before he removed himself completely from the prince. The ladies reflected in the window were pretty, but Luhan was more so. The flowers were pretty, but Luhan more so than them. The rose was beautiful, but Luhan was more so than them. But, Kai did not think other would think so. Something in his mind told him to stop and the Shade finally listened to it. He backed up into the dark areas of the prince’s room and disappeared.

 


	9. Machine

**Machine:**

 

 

 

The prince’s quarters were always deathly quiet. It irked the guard even after years of pacing the halls, monitoring. Occasionally the air in the halls would get colder and Chen would look to the floor above and wonder if the leader was practicing or if he was angry. Or, did the halls just occasionally drop in temperature, cold air coming from the floors above. Luhan always seemed in a better mood when the halls were colder. At least, Chen thought he was in a better mood, the prince never did say how he felt other than a nod or shake of his head. The guard could not remember ever hearing Luhan speak a word. He would have deemed the older mute had he not been informed otherwise by the other players. Though he had lived in the castle since he was young, he had only seen the prince from far away. The closest he had ever gotten was during a competition in which both princes sat on their thrones watching bored on opposite sides of the arena. He had never heard him speak.

 

Chen missed those competitions. He missed going outside and practicing with the other knights in their barracks in the city, shooting rubber bullets at his comrades and swinging the blunt edged axes at them until it was only he and Baekhyun and, of course, the number one in EXOTICA, Zitao. No, it was Tao now. He and Baekhyun had always fought for their right to go against the younger boy. Some years Chen fought him, other years Baekhyun bested him and got the chance, but they never won against Tao. Their trainer said it was because they spent so much time trying to out do each other instead of focusing on getting stronger. Tao purely focused on getting stronger.

 

The guard had yet to see Tao. It had been two weeks since the Shade had awoken. Perhaps that was a good thing, though. Just the mere thought of the Shade sent a fear and anger through Chen. He could feel it from where it traveled from the ring on his right hand, both a feeling he had himself and a feeling his powers forced on him. He wondered if Baekhyun had met Tao yet, had gotten to fight with the Shade. The thought made Chen a bit jealous. Baekhyun would get to face off against Tao over and over, and this time death would be on the line. If Tao won, then he would be able to face him again after the game was over, would he not? But, it Baekhyun won, and then he would get to fight with Baekhyun, beat the one that beat the best, his rival among other things. He almost wished Baekhyun would win.

 

Chen paused, coming to a window that faced toward the Kelsic castle and stared out of it. Somewhere in the distance, he could see a shape moving among the steal buildings of the city. Was it the Shade? Was it Tao, or the one he had learned was called Kai? Would Kai be as ruthless an assassin as Chen guessed Tao to be? He did not know this Kai. Many young men had been taken when the choosing began for the Shade’s position, a sort of testing, they called it. Tao had offered to be the Shade, though, because of his high rank, Chen knew they had no interest in allowing him to be killed, but the heads of EXOTICA, the kings and queens, could not just simply say no to one who wanted to keep others from experiencing the psychological and sometimes physical pain of being a player in the game. By the time the Kelsic Shade was chosen, Chen had already been given his orders to begin his distancing – they were all given a year for that, so that when time stopped, the lack of people did not make them go insane for the one hundred days it was only them twelve fighting six to six.

 

Ever twelve hours he counted when Chen decided a rest was in order, he prayed as he shut his eyes that this Kai was weak, that he would be easy to run off. If he was strong…Chen did not want to think about death.

 

A body walking out from a door caught the guard’s attention and Chen looked away from the window. The prince quietly shut the door behind him and walked with slow small steps. Chen looked at him curiously before walking over. The prince stumbled a bit and Chen moved to catch him in his arms. He felt weak. The prince always felt weak, his presence small, and Chen had a hard time sensing it at the beginning, he had learned though, and he could sense the rest, but Luhan seemed weaker. The guard moved a hand and lifted the prince’s face. He was always pale, so the dark circles under his eyes seemed to scream at Chen.

 

“Luhan, have you been sleeping?” the guard asked.

 

The prince shook in his arms, trying to keep himself standing. Eventually, he just let Chen hold up his weight and shook his head.

 

“Why have you not been sleeping? You have to rest, Luhan.”

 

Luhan shook his head again and tried to pull away.

 

Chen sighed. “You are not a machine, Luhan, and we can not have our prince hooked up to machines either because he did not rest. Are you scared?”

 

The prince stilled in his arms before nodding.

 

“What are you scared of, Luhan, please tell me. I’m your guard; I have to watch over you.”

 

 The prince’s fists clenched tightly on to Chen’s shirt. He shook his head dramatically before a small whimper escaped his lips. It was frustrating trying to understand the prince when he refused to speak. He had heard stories that the older boy spoke often when he was younger, was playful and happy. Of course, those were the years Chen still studied in the barracks with the others, not a castle born fighter like Tao and a few other boys who were allowed to retreat back to the castles after practices.

 

Chen almost did not hear it while he mused on the frustration of the situation, that small chirping like noise. “Did you say something?”

 

“K…ai…he will come…and I will…say too much…again,” Luhan whispered.

 

The guard was not sure if he was more surprised by the sound of Luhan’s voice, the softness airy and light, or by the confession. “Again…he has been here already?”

 

The prince bowed his head and moved away. He stumbled out of Chen’s hold and tried to walk down the hall, but Chen grabbed his hand. “The Shade has been here? How come I have not felt him?”

 

“You can not feel him…unless you are close, you can only feel me.”

 

Chen let Luhan slip his hand away and watched as the prince walked down the hall. He could only feel Luhan’s presence if the Shade came, but he could barely feel Luhan at all. He was good at hiding himself, hiding the shifts in his emotions. But he should scream if the Shade appeared. He should be able to feel the adrenaline in the prince’s blood when the Shade tried to kill him. But, and Chen did not fully understand it, perhaps Luhan did not want him to feel it. Was he hiding something?

 

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

The healer laid in the leader’s bed, arms thrown over his head and sheet tangled around his legs. He stared up at the dark blue fabric of Suho’s canopy bed blankly, waiting for the heat in his body to decrease to a comfortable temperature and the tingling between his legs to stop. He could hear shifting beside him and turned his head to see Suho sitting up in bed, his head in his hands, rubbing up into his hair. D.O sat up and moved over to the leader, reaching a hand out to place on his shoulder.

 

“Suho, what is wrong?”

 

The leader jumped a bit at the touch. He moved his hands from his face and looked at D.O, eyes red. “I am sorry, please do not worry.”  
  


D.O frowned and scooted closer to Suho. He moved behind him, placing his legs on each side and wrapped his arms around his shoulders from the back. The healer rested his chin on Suho’s shoulder and nudged the older man’s face with his head.

 

“You should know better than to tell me not to worry. I worry for all of you and of course I worry for you the most. I love you.”

 

The healer peaked at Suho seeing a smile on the leader’s lips. “I love you, too.”

 

“Hmm, really? I have not heard you say so for a while. I was starting to doubt you.”

 

Suho chuckled and shook his head. “No, I apologize. It is hard to say those words to you now. I can not say them when we make love.” 

 

“As long as you respond when I say them, I will let it go until the game is over,” D.O said and held the leader tighter to him.

 

Suho nodded. “I will…when the game is done, I will say them to you every second.”

 

D.O smiled and nodded. “That sounds good. Are you in a better mood now?”

 

“A bit, yet,” Suho said and sighed. “I am worried about the Shade.”

 

“The Shade? Kai? Has he done something?”

 

“I know he has been making trips to the Mafic castle, but I do not know why since it is obvious he has not killed the prince.”

 

“Before, he went to scout it, correct? He is probably doing something similar. We can not understand what goes through the Shade’s head, Suho. No matter how much I feel bad for the boy, I am sure the only think he thinks about is the prince.”

 

“Yes, but that is what I am worried about.”

 

The healer studied Suho’s expression curiously. He seemed deep in thought again, worry creasing at his eyes. D.O leaned back and placed his hands on Suho’s shoulders beginning to push his fingers and the palms of his hands into the muscle there, kneading it. The leader let out a small moan and his eyes closed.

 

“I will never understand why they chose him. He was an innocent boy. They should have never put him against Luhan,” Suho said.

 

D.O paused for a moment before continuing to massage the leader. “We will never understand our parent’s and family’s choices, but it is not completely up to them, our powers have to be compatible. There are only a handful of candidates for each position.”

 

“Unless you are the prince.”  
  


D.O nodded. “They have no choice, many of us did not. Some of us are allowed to be together, like you and me. I am happy I was put on the same team as you, that I could be here with you, Suho.”

 

Suho nodded. “I know; I am happy to have you here too. I do not want to think how it would have been without you. But, it is unfair. Kai…he is like a machine now it seems. He is just a body. Is he even human now?”

 

The healer wondered that, too. What was a Shade? What happened to all those young men and woman over the years that were stripped away and left in that tube for four hundred days to come out as empty shells with only one goal, no memory of their past lives? Could you call someone like that human?

 

“I wish…I knew why it was like this.”

 

 D.O moved his hands from Suho’s shoulder and wrapped them around his waist, lightly tracing the lines of muscles on the older man’s abdomen. “Please do not over think. You have enough to do, let it be for now. It is too late to understand the game, we are already in it. If you are under stress, just call me more often.”

 

Suho turned to look at the healer. “I do not want to make what we do something to simply relieve myself.”

 

“Then I will just hold you.” D.O moved back against the headboard, pulling the leader with him so Suho’s head rested on his chest. He ran his finger through the red tinted dark strands and hummed. The leader’s eyes slowly begin to close until D.O could hear soft breathing, the leader’s face completely calm, and a finger tapping against his knee as Suho counted in his sleep.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

Lay tossed and turned on the bed. He could not rest. He was hot, but cold and felt sore. The healer knew he was not sick; you could not get sick unless from exhaustion while time stood still. Was this what stress felt like? When was the last time he had been stressed? He was stressed more often than he would like to believe, everyday, every second. Perhaps this was the cuss of ignoring his stress that seemed more believable than backlash from the sex he had begin to have again after more than a year. He had not seen the Shade often since Lay had learned the Shade still had memories of him, but when he did, the healer barely got a few words in, sometimes a meal, before Tao attacked him. Lay could really find no reason to deny his lover, and he only felt worse if he thought on it too much.

 

Why did he remember him?

 

Why did he seem to only want to touch him?

 

And Tao was rough. Lay woke up the first time on his bed, still damp from the shower, with bruises on his back and arms. He did not find it odd at first since the Tao he remembered occasionally was rough, but he was also sweet and cried if he thought he hurt Lay. The Shade did not seem the type to cry.

 

It had to be a Shade thing. Tao was not supposed to remember him, his only urge was to kill, so maybe he did not understand how to be gentle or he did not remember ever being gentle. When the healer thought logically, Tao could definitely not remember every second they had ever spent together, just enough to know they were lovers.

 

Still, it bothered Lay. He had locked all his hopes up that when the Shade awoken he would be the same person. Then he said he remembered him and they made love and now Lay was not sure which feelings to keep locked up and which to let out. He should just leave things as they were…even if his hips hurt and he feared he would not be able to walk tomorrow if he ran into the Shade today.

 

He was hungry.

 

The other players would probably appreciate a meal since Lay was interrupted the last time he tried to prepare one, bent over the table. He still had the light bruise on his stomach. Had it really only been around a week since the first time? Fifty-five days left.

 

Lay threw his legs over the side of the bed with a groan of effort and sat up. He reached his arms above his head to stretch before gingerly stepping onto the carpet of his floor. He cringed at the soreness that ran up his legs to his hips and shook. The healer reached up a hand to the unicorn head shaped pendent on his left shoulder and tapped it. He wanted just enough of his magic to take the edge of the soreness and then proceeded to walk out of his room.

 

It was a long walk to the kitchens of the Mafic castle, but Lay quite enjoyed it. His muscles felt stretched, and working them helped the soreness go away. He felt refreshed in a way, once he got to the kitchens, and started to look around. They had rations for the one hundred days they were stuck in time. It would not spoil, but they also could not eat it all. Thirty days it took time to slow had luckily slowed their appetites as well as their need to rest, but it was still important that the players ate occasionally. With the slowing for the need to food also came the slowing of realizing you were drained.

 

Lay bustled about, cutting meat and vegetables, cooking rice, and even going about making a cake. Though he himself enjoyed snacks and sweets, he had not attempted a cake since Tao had been put in the tube. Hopefully the Shade would eat a piece.

 

It was just as Lay finished turning off all the equipment, allowing the food to cool, that he heard footsteps walk into the kitchen. Images of  a curious Tao from when they had first began to quart walking into the kitchen to bother him while Lay went about cooking, a hobby of his, surfaced and he turned with a bright smile to great the Shade only for his eyes to widen.

 

“Oh…Kris.”

 

The taller older male stood in just inside the doorway looking around. His eyes landed on Lay and the healer met them carefully.

 

“Is the Shade here?”

 

“No, I have not seen him for twenty-four hours more or less,” Lay said. “Do you need something?”

 

Kris shook his head. “No, I smelt the food and wondered if he was here with you. Since he is not, I would like to speak with you.”

 

Lay was surprised. Though he and Kris had been to closest to Tao in the days before the game’s preparations, they did not often interact. Though Lay was his lover, Kris had taken care of the younger boy, like an adopted older brother and sometimes Lay became jealous of their relationship. Tao was not a royal like them, not born from a cousin of the kings, not a child of the group that chose them, but he was not from the city either. He was a sub-royal, a child raised in the castle and taught fighting and studies, unlike most knights who were given to the castles from rich families in the city to train.

 

“What is it?” Lay asked and gestured to a chair for the weapon to sit down in.

 

Kris shook his head, declining. “No, I will make it quick. Tao remembers you. I tampered with the equipment in the dungeons so that he would. Now I have a favor to ask you.”

 

Lay was shocked, speechless. Kris was the reason he was able to be held in Tao’s arms during this time? The reason he remembered him? He nodded without a thought of why Kris would do this.

 

“Please refrain from conversing too much with him, from trying to make him regain more memories. I need you to encourage him to kill the Kelsic prince.”


	10. What Is Love

**What is Love:**

 

 

 

On one of the ledges of the castle windows, the Shade sat with one knee pulled up to his chest and head rested on it. The Shade stared out across the city to the castle on the beach. His dark eyes studied the windows on the darker side of the Mafic castle where the set sun did not reach. A figure moved pass the windows occasionally every couple of hours, Kai had noticed over the past five days he had spent observing from the safety of the Kelsic castle. The time varied a bit, but the Shade had come to a rounded calculation of the average time it took for each passing of the windows in that section of the castle. He guessed the figure to be the Mafic guard with how definite they were with the passing. Occasionally, other figures would walk by those sets of windows as well, but only one other regularly did, disappearing in and out of the doors the Shade could just make out from his spot through the windows even with his enhanced vision. It was the occupant of that section of the castle, the Mafic prince. Luhan – the one he found to beautiful.

 

Kai lifted a hand and held a rose out in front of him blocking his view of the Mafic castle. Its white petals looked gray in the dim light of night on the Kelsic side and Kai frowned. Would the prince’s face look the same, creamy white skin tinted the gray of death? The Shade found that not beautiful. He was still unsure of what that word meant, but he knew the image of a corpse Luhan, tinted gray and rotting, was not beautiful to him. He did not wish to see that.

 

Wish. That was another word he could not understand though he kept doing it, wishing. He wished to have more of these roses. He wished to know what it was he had witnessed between the prince Sehun and the weapon. He wished to see Luhan again, to run his fingers along the contours of the prince’s face, to hear his soft voice call out his name, to abuse his slender neck. Kai did not wish to kill him, though.

 

He wanted to kill him.

 

He needed to.

 

Kai spent time pondering these thoughts for the last five days since the word wish had popped into his head. He had begun to plan his next moves around them. He had questions for the prince, though his mind would not let him formulate reasons for the asking of those questions. He had decided to talk to Luhan. He confused him and made the blocks in Kai’s mind apparent to the Shade. If the prince refused to answer his questions, Kai decided he would kill him and be done with it all, the confusion and the words that kept popping up in his mind.

 

A movement in the castle caught the Shade’s attention. Kai stood up and watched carefully as the guard moved past the windows he had been watching, it was time. The Shade jumped down from the ledge disappearing in a vortex of black and reappeared a few meters outside of the city. He continued to teleport as such until he arrived before the Mafic castle staring at the prince’s quarters. Kai watched for a few minutes as the guard made his rounds then closed his eyes.

 

The prince was in a chair before the fireplace, the only source of light in the room. A book lay in his lap and he hunched forward a bit in the high back chair, a finger grazing across the words on the opened pages. Kai moved slowly through the shadows and behind the prince’s chair. He peeked and him seeing the prince tensed up and extended his arm around the chair into Luhan’s view.

 

A small yelp escaped the prince’s lips and he jumped. He turned with widened eyes traveling up Kai’s arm until their eyes met. The prince relaxed with a sigh and moved his eyes back down to see the white rose Kai still held in his outstretched hand.

 

“Another one?” the prince asked.

 

Kai shook his hand urging Luhan to take the flower. The prince sighed and lightly plucked it from his hand, inspecting the stem of the rose for thorns.

 

“Why are you giving this to me?”

 

The Shade cocked his head to the side not understanding the question. Yes, he had given the flower to Luhan. He had given the other to him last time as well. Was he not supposed to?

 

“Because it is beautiful and you are beautiful.”

 

Luhan bowed his head and shook it, light brown hair, tinted red with the firelight, shaking and reminding Kai of the rose petals falling to the ground when he had first touched the flower.

 

“No, no I am not beautiful. Do you know what beautiful even means?”

 

“No,” Kai admitted as he moved around and took a seat in the other chair in the room in front of the prince. He leaned forward; face cupped in his hands and caught Luhan’s eyes. “Will you tell me what it means?”

 

The prince blinked at Kai blankly. The Shade almost got annoyed as seconds ticked by and the prince did not answer him.

 

“You are serious?”

 

Kai frowned. “Of course; I can not ask a question if I do not want the answer.”

 

The prince’s tongue slipped out between his lips and Kai watched the small pink appendage as it swiped across Luhan’s small pouting lips before returning back to its home. New words began to surface in Kai’s mind and his brows furrowed. He felt different and shifted in the chair.

 

“What does beautiful mean?”

 

Luhan softly closed his book and placed both hands on top of it, rose stem resting between them. Kai watched as the prince swallowed the small convulsion of his neck fascinating. He had the urge to reach out and feel it. The prince began to talk and the Shade’s attention moved to his lips.

 

“Beautiful, it is an opinion. It is when one finds something that pulls them in and takes their breath away, that is when they use the word beautiful,” the prince explained.

 

The Shade watched Luhan’s lips moved and nodded. He understood that much. Was that all there was to it?

 

“What do you do when you find something is beautiful?”

 

“You…you do not do anything really. You just admire it.”

 

The Shade scooted himself farther onto the edge of the chair, bringing himself closer to Luhan. “How do you admire a person you find beautiful?”

 

The prince leaned back in his chair when Kai scooted closer. He turned his head and a dusty pink covered his cheeks.

 

“They…they touch them and compliment them.”

 

Kai nodded. Compliment. Beautiful was a compliment, he remembered that now. The Shade moved from the chair and knelt down before Luhan. He slipped the rose from between his hands and moved it up to tuck behind the prince’s ear then slid his hand along the side of Luhan’s face, tilting it up. The prince looked at him with nervous frightened eyes, the look he gave him only when the Shade touched him without the intent to kill.

 

“You are beautiful,” Kai said and leaned down. He pressed his lips against the prince’s and felt Luhan gasp, lips parting. The Shade was urged by that motion to slide his tongue inside to meet with the prince’s pink one he had seen before. As soon as they made contact though, the Shade was pushed away.

 

The Shade laid on the floor, his head close to the fire place and he could feel the heat making sweat collect on his forehead. He slowly pulled himself up and turned his dark eyes on the prince. Luhan had his legs pulled up onto the chair and stared at Kai horrified, one hand covering his mouth. Kai began to move back toward him, but the prince held out his other hand.

 

“No, stay there,” said the prince, his voice muffled by his hand. “You…you can not touch me. Unless you are to kill me, you can not touch me.”

 

“Why? Why can I not touch you?”

 

“It…it is not fair. Please, do not touch me like that again. Just…just kill me.”

 

Kai shook his head. “No…I do not wish to kill you.”

 

Water collected in the prince’s eyes. Crying. Why was he crying?

 

“No…no, you have to kill me.”

 

“I have to, but I do not wish to…you can die yourself.”

 

“It has to be you…you have to kill me Kai,” the prince said. His eyes begged for Kai to do as he asked, to just kill him, tears over flowing and sliding down his beautiful face.

 

Something clenched at Kai’s chest at the sight. “Why…does it have to be me?”

 

The Shade watched Luhan’s lips as they moved to answer, words spoken so softly he almost could not hear them.

 

“Because I love you.”

 

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

Fifty days. Fifty days had passed since the stilling of time. It was already halfway through the game and they were all still alive. Chanyeol let a smile slip past his lips as he exited the Kelsic castle. It was after one of those rare times when the weapon was called into Sehun’s bedroom. The prince’s eyes had dark bags under them and his snow white skin looked even paler than usual. When he reached out for Chanyeol, beckoning him to come and join him on the bed, the weapon did not hesitate in stripping and obeying. The weapon moved himself over and over, violating himself on the prince as Sehun laid under him until the hand on his hips, squeezing tight and encouraging, relaxed and Sehun’s breathing evened out. Chanyeol had sat there, his skin covered with a fine sheen of sweat; just staring down at the prince’s sleeping face, admiring the beautiful, before pulling away. He would have liked to stay and fallen asleep beside the prince, but he knew from past experience that when Sehun trusted him enough to see him so helpless, it was best to leave quickly and stay away for a while.

 

Sehun must have known what day it was. Knowing he had lived for half the game, but also still had fifty more days to go must have made it hard for the prince to sleep. Chanyeol wished there was more he could do for the younger boy, more than allowing him the use of his body. It seemed the more time went on, the less Sehun talked to him. The weapon wanted to know of his worries, wanted to share the burden. For now, though, he just needed some space and to walk off the soreness in his hips and back.

 

The weapon made his way into the city. It was not encouraged to leave the castle as they could run into any player from the other side and a fight could start, but Chanyeol was a weapon, there was no use in fighting with him until his time came. The death rate of a weapon by other players other than another weapon was low, almost as low as the Shade’s. All he had to fear was the other weapon.

 

Chanyeol had to blink his eyes a few times as the darkness began to become brighter as he walked. He had gotten to use to the night sky on the Kelsic side and paused. He turned his back to the light rays deeming he had walked far enough, still covered in the Kelsic dark. His eyes traveled to his own castle and he began to point out each window and which room it belonged to, a sort of game to get his mind off his previous activities.

 

“What are you counting?”

 

The weapon jumped at the sound of the voice and turned his head to see the Shade standing a few meters away. He disappeared in a vortex of black only to reappear a few inches away. Chanyeol looked at him curiously. He was not wearing the full black outfit he had the few times the weapon had gotten a glimpse of him, and his face was not as dark and scary as Baekhyun had described him. In fact, the Shade’s face resembled much that of a confused child.

 

“I was counting the windows. Where have you just come from?”

 

“The Mafic castle,” the Shade answered.

 

“You didn’t kill the Mafic prince?”

 

The Shade shook his head. “He said something that confused me.”

 

“Oh, what did he say then?”

 

The Shade brought a hand up and tapped his lips. “He said he loves me.”

 

The weapon was shocked by this. The Mafic prince loved the Shade? It did not make any sense to Chanyeol, but of course, Chanyeol did not know the prince named Luhan well or the Shade for that matter.

 

“What does it mean?”

 

“What?”

 

The Shade looked at him, dark eyes shining with a short of boyish innocence that Chanyeol would not have guessed an assassin to have. Who was the Shade exactly?

 

“Love, what does that mean?”

 

Chanyeol crossed his arms and looked up at the dark sky, glittering with stars. He wondered if those stars were still up there, or had they already died out, of course he would never know, but he did know what love was, or at least he thought he did. “Love, it’s a feeling you have. It can be toward someone or something. When it is toward someone, you get this tightening in your chest and all you ever want to do is see them and help them. When they’re in pain, you want to heal them and it makes you hurt to. They become your whole world, your obsession, and you would do anything for them even if it hurt you just to make them happy, to make them smile.”

 

“Do…do you know what love is…do you love someone?” the Shade asked.

 

The weapon suddenly had the feeling that he should not be telling the Shade about love, that he should not know. However, maybe it was because he did not know of the other players, just a normal commoner with no training before the game players were chosen, that he felt there was no reason why the Shade should not know. Was he not human as well?

 

“I do.”

 

“Is it our prince?”

 

Chanyeol nodded.

 

“Is that why you do _that_ with him?”

 

Chanyeol nodded again.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

His sleep had been restless. From the moment Sehun had felt Chanyeol get up from the bed, he had tossed and turned and awoken continuously. However, he refused to call the weapon back to bed. Eventually, he had just gotten up and caught the eye of his guard to follow him as he exited the castle. He needed to get out and made his way to the only place where the sun reached on the Kelsic side, the small desert with a single chair seated in the middle. Sehun sat himself there quietly and stared off into the distance at the Mafic castle.  

 

They were half way through the game. Fifty days was far more than he had anticipated for the game to go on. He had overestimated Kai. What was the Shade doing? Everyday more he dallied brought the Mafic Shade closer to Sehun. Not that Sehun was worried about facing him, that was what Baekhyun was for, but he rather not have to encounter him. But, he did often wonder when he would come, or perhaps he was watching, carefully planning how best to kill Sehun. What would it feel like, being on the verge of being killed? How many times had Luhan felt that?      

 

The shifting of the air beside Sehun caught his attention. He tensed, but calmed familiar with this particular shift in space.

 

“Kai, where have you been?”

 

“With the weapon. We talked and he said you were asleep. I waited until you were awake to see you.”

 

Kai had talked to the weapon? Sehun glared at the Shade and beckoned him closer. The Shade disappeared and reappeared before Sehun. “What did you talk to Chanyeol about?”

 

“I had a question. He answered it?”

 

The prince shifted in his chair. “And what was the question? Was it important enough that you could not have used the time to plan how to kill the Mafic prince?”

 

“It was about him,” the Shade said, “something he said to me.”

 

The prince tensed again. He stared past Kai to the Mafic castle, face blank. “You should not talk to him, just kill him.”

 

“I understand, I have to kill him.” The Shade turned as if to leave. Sehun stood and stopped him.

 

“What is it that he said to you? What did you talk to Chanyeol about?”

 

The Shade turned his head. “Luhan said he loves me.”

 

Luhan. Love. Both words that should never leave the lips of the Shade. He did not need to know his name. He did not need to know his feelings. The air around Sehun began to swirl and pick up the sand.

 

“That liar…that cheater…he is not supposed to tell you those things!” Sehun said, voice growing louder.

 

The wind around him picked up and his chair was caught in one of the swirling vortexes and thrown toward the Shade. The Shade quickly disappeared and Sehun’s winds died down. He stood in the middle of the desert, head hung and clenched his fists tight, his knuckles becoming whiter than they the already pale complexion of his skin.

 

“You promised…so much…why did you have to tell him that?”


	11. Baby Don't Cry

**Baby Don’t Cry:**

 

 

 

For ten days the Shade remained hidden out of sight, curled up in a corner of the room he had been given, staring out the window at the dark sky that shown with stars. He did not make to move from his spot, ignoring the growing numbness of his legs being propped up against his chest and just stared. The sudden anger of the prince toward Kai had the Shade in a whirlwind of confusion, more so than he had experienced with the Mafic prince. What was the point of throwing a chair at his own Shade? If it was a form of self defense, Prince Sehun should have waited for the other Shade to show up.

 

No one had said Kai was not allowed to speak with the Mafic prince, with Luhan. He could not understand Sehun’s anger at the knowledge. No, he had been angry after hearing that Luhan loved him. Luhan loved Kai. The weapon loved Sehun. Was it not the same then? Chanyeol said it was something good and happy. Would the prince not be happy about such news? It was all very confusion and blocks continued to build in Kai’s head the more he tried to think about it, and soon he fell into a trance like state replaying Luhan’s confession and his discussion with Chanyeol over and over again.

 

 Three days into his solitude, Kai’s mind began to add images to the words, the Mafic prince’s small face lighted by the flames from the fireplace, a rose tucked behind his ear, Sehun with the weapon bent over his desk. He let it all play loosely in his head as trying to make sense of it had not worked. He began to have urges to stand up, to leave his corner and teleport to the Mafic castle. He wanted to see Luhan, to ask him more questions, but he resisted and continued to mindlessly stare at the never changing sky and let whatever may flow through his head.

 

Sixty days into the game, Kai stood. He stood in that spot and stared at the stars. Images of Luhan’s face flashed and he could hear Chanyeol’s words echoing in his ears. He lifted a hand to his chest and felt the quick off beat rhythm of his heart. He clenched at his jacket and looked down at his feet. Kai did not think Shades were supposed to love, he did not know how. Where they supposed to be loved? They were not?

 

The thought to pick another rose crossed Kai’s mind and in a moment he disappeared in a vortex of black to reappear in the park where the white blossoms bloomed. He reached a hand out and plucked one of the flowers, careful of the thorns. He used the silver pin that marked him as the Shade to hold the flower safely to him and looked toward the sky.

 

The sun from the Mafic side cast a long shadow of a figure on the ground near Kai’s feet. He looked up and saw a man standing on a building, sword held in one hand. Their eyes met and Kai disappeared.

 

It was a strange place, the dimension Kai disappeared to for those few milliseconds it took for him to teleport from one place to another. He had known it was not a space that belonged solely to himself, but he had yet had to share the space. The Kelsic Shade’s eyes met that of the Mafic Shade’s. He stared into the other’s sharp eyes and saw a reflection of himself for the first time. The Mafic Shade’s eyes were steely and dark, his stance that of one pausing but ready to continue. But, there was something more, something different. There was aliveness to the other Shade, but also a sort of emptiness.

 

“You know things,” Kai said as he passed by.

 

“As do you, things you should not know,” the other said.

 

“I know nothing, but I am learning.”

 

“Do not learn, just kill.”

 

And then he was gone and Kai stood before the Mafic castle. He unpinned the rose and brushed the white petals over his cheek then his lips as he studied the castle and felt a tightening in his chest as the feeling of the velvet like petals brought up memories of Kai’s lips brushing against the prince’s. Something was not right; he wished to understand why that was.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

The halls were quiet; the Shade could not feel the Mafic guard close nor. He was far away, and by Kai’s calculations, napping. The Shade found no need to teleport and took quiet steady steps down the hall until he began to hear it, that steady flow of blood being pumped through Luhan’s heart. With each step it seemed to become quicker and Kai did not doubt the prince could sense him as he brought a hand to the door knob of the prince’s bedroom and opened it.

 

He expected Luhan to scream, to yell and try to fight him, though he should have understood that the prince never did, he was submissive beneath the Shade’s hands. Kai stood at the door staring at the bed where the prince laid. Luhan sat up and turned his head.

 

“You are here again,” he said and twisted in his sheets. Creamy long legs slipped from under the sheets and fell to the floor. The prince stood, his loose pants falling to cover his legs and walked to the edge of where the light reached near his bed. He crossed his arms and stared at Kai, finally, a bit of fear in his eyes.

 

The Shade approached with long strides, holding the new rose out in front of him. The prince’s eyes landed on the flower and he bit his bottom lip, shifting his stance so one hip jutted out.

 

“You brought me another one?”

 

Kai stood in front of Luhan, pushing the flower onto him. “It is yours. Take it.”

 

The prince shook his head. “I do not want it. Take it away.”

 

Kai stared at the prince and slowly lowered the flower. “Why do you love me?”

 

Luhan looked away, a sort of pink covering his cheeks. His small pink tongue appeared and licked at his lips and the Shade felt his own tongue doing the same at the sight.

 

“Forget I said that. It has nothing to do with the game. Kill me or go away.”

 

“You can not command me. I will kill you when I want and I will go away when I want,” Kai said. “Only my prince and my leader can tell me what to do.”

 

The Mafic prince pursed his lips. “Yes, I know that well. You are simply their pawn and nothing else. You are just the Shade. You should just kill me quickly for his sake.”

 

“For whose sake?” Kai asked. There was a building in his chest; it made his fist clench and his teeth grit against each other. “For whose sake should I kill you?”

 

“Your prince’s,” Luhan said looking back at Kai.

 

“You love me, though, but you want to die for his sake? I do not understand.”

 

The prince uncrossed his arms and shook his head, light brown locks swishing with the movement, some falling into his eyes. “I want the one I love to kill me because I deserve to die, not him.”

 

“I don’t want to kill you,” Kai said, staring at the locks that covered the prince’s eyes.

 

The prince stomped his foot and growled. “Stop these ridiculous games, Kai. Kill me!”

 

“No.” The Shade reached out and touched the prince’s soft locks, brushing them from his face.

 

The prince stiffened at the touch. His eyes closed and lips parted as he took in a deep breath. “Do not touch me.”

 

His voice was low, more of a threat than a command. The Shade did not like it. His hand moved from Luhan’s hair and wrapped around his throat. The prince gave a quiet surprised yelp and clung to Kai’s wrist as the Shade pushed him back into a wall.

 

They were in the dark of the prince’s room, but even there, Kai could make out the expressions of the prince’s face. His eyes were half lidded and lips parted gasping for breath. Kai tightened his hand around Luhan’s slim neck and growled.

 

“Do not threaten me,” he said and continued to stare at the prince’s face, eyes traveling to those parted lips. “Do not…confuse me.” He lowered his head and placed his lips against the prince’s.

 

They felt softer than the rose petals had and a little wet. The Shade slid his tongue between the parted pillows and flicked it around the sweet cavern. His hand on the prince’s neck loosened and traveled down. He could feel the shape of the prince’s body under the thin white material he wore to sleep, the small but well define v-shaped torso and the slight curve of his hips where he rested his hand. His other arm came up to brace itself on the wall by the prince’s head as he continued to adventure Luhan’s mouth, amazed by the small tingles that traveled from the contact through his body.

 

The prince shivered beneath him, hands coming to grip at the collar of his shirt and he made small sounds of protest until Kai pulled away to breath. Luhan turned his head. His lips looked redder and swollen and his cheeks glistened from tears that slipped free from the corners of his eyes and he sniffed.

 

“Stop,” Luhan begged quietly.

 

But the command to stop did not register right with Kai.

 

“No.”

 

The Shade leaned down and kissed away the streams of salty water. The prince turned his head back to Kai’s, small whimpers escaping from his lips. Their eyes met and Kai stared into the prince’s brown glistening orbs. They had always seemed almost dead, empty of everything but sadness, but now, he could make out a hint of something else. Was this the look of love? It seemed much more alive than that, he could feel it in himself, a longing to hold tight to the prince to touch him and make him cry out, but not with pain.

 

Kai lowered his head again, crashing their lips together. This time, the prince’s arms came up and wrapped themselves around the Shade’s neck. Kai’s hold on Luhan’s hip moved to his thigh and the Prince jumped, holding himself tight to the Shade. Their tongues moved against each other and Kai let out sounds, growls and groans, as heat raked his body. His mind became empty and all he could do was feel.

 

Passion.

 

That was the word that came to him as Kai gripped the prince tight and walked back to his bed. His lips had moved from Luhan’s lips to kiss along that creamy long neck. He began to bite as his lips moved closer to the prince’s collar, pulling at the loose sheer shirt he wore until it tore. Luhan moaned at the abusive attention and arched up into the Shade causing him to moan and feel a stirring below his belt. He was not yet sure what it meant, but his body seemed to understand and he allowed himself to just move. No more thinking, thinking brought up the blocks in his mind, just actions.

 

Kai lifted away from Luhan and stared down at the disheveled prince who stared back up at him, huffing; the emotions in his eyes in the same state as his body. The Shade spotted a small dusty pink nub peaking out of the tears he had made in Luhan’s night shirt. He grabbed the material and tore at it more until the prince’s entire chest was revealed and leaned down, attacking that spot, suckling on it and nipping it until the prince whined and writhe under him, hips pushing up against his.

 

The Shade pulled away when he felt pain bellow his belt. He tilted his head back, eyes fluttering closed and palmed that area, a low sigh escaping his lips and went back to stare at Luhan. His hands moved without thought, unbuckling his pants and unzipping them pushing them down. He had not thoughts to puzzle over the state of his member, why it was like that, his body only urged him to make it go away, to make this fiery building to cool and he ripped at the prince’s white loose pants.

 

Luhan cried out, legs crossing to cover his exposed nakedness. Kai grabbed his knees and forced them apart, moving between them. His fingers came to his own lips and he sucked them as he watched Luhan squirm, eyes going to the prince’s own member and his other hand reached out to touch it, to study it, squeezing it, playing with the tip. Wet fingers moved to Luhan’s hole and he pushed two in.

 

“K-Kai…” the prince moaned, arms coming to cover his face.

 

The Shade added a third, moving them around, exploring the area until the prince’s hips bucked toward them and he arched. Kai removed his fingers and pressed himself into the prince’s hole. He grabbed Luhan’s arms so he could watch the prince’s face, tears spilling out of his eyes and the Shade moved to kiss them away as he pulled out and pushed back in.

 

The heat only grew the more friction he built up inside Luhan, but Kai could not stop. His breath became heavy and he felt wetness along his body. He had never sweat so much before, he had seen it on Baekhyun when they practiced and thought it was a sign of weakness, but he felt strong right then, he felt as if he could go on for the rest of the game and yet, he wanted it to end already. The building in his stomach was too much and he could feel his muscles ripple and spasm the longer he went.  But, the cries of the prince below him urged him to continue, to not give up until he was rid of the heat.

 

Luhan’s nails dug through the material of Kai’s jacket, making imprints into his arms. His long legs hooked tight around the Shade’s middle and his head was thrown back leaving all the milky expanse of his neck exposed. Kai kissed his neck, continued to leave red marks all along it and for a moment he had the thought that it was even more beautiful than the red blood he had drawn there before.

 

“Ah…ha…K-Kai,” Luhan called, his hips moving with the Shade’s. He tilted his head forward, eyes fluttering, trying to catch his breath. For a second their eyes met and the Shade was stunned, hips jerking forward hard and the prince arched.

 

“Jongin…ah!”

 

Kai felt the prince tighten around him and groaned, the heat finally pooling over and into Luhan. He held himself over the prince, staring down at his limp vulnerable state and there were tears again. He reached up and pulled Kai down on top of him, holding him tight. The Shade laid there, one hand coming to stroke at the prince’s hair as he stared into the darkness until the warmth of the prince’s body against his lulled him to sleep right before his mind began to focus on thoughts, blocking them. 

 

Jongin?

     

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

 

The guard should have gotten another couple hours of sleep, but after fighting against the strange feeling that urged him to get up, Chen finally did. He yawned as he hurried from his own quarters two halls away from the prince’s. He stopped as he reached the main hall of Luhan’s quarters. He closed his eyes and felt around for the disturbance, but only found a soft lull in the air, a soft, dark lull. Fear gripped his chest and Chen took a step back. He wanted to run, but this was his job, to keep the prince alive. He was still alive, was he not? The game was still going. He definitely would have felt it if Luhan had died at least even if he could feel nothing else when it came to the Mafic prince.

 

Chen placed a hand on his heart and took a deep breath to calm him. This was his job, his placed. He was the guard. Over half the game was long enough for him to not have come across the Shade, it was time he met this killer.

 

Chen ran, a long metal pole in one hand. He had left the prince to sleep, deciding to nap as well. The guard stopped before Luhan’s bedroom door and reached out a shaky hand to open it. Darkness immediately surrounded him, but he could see him, the prince, bed the only thing lighted in the room. Chen squinted. The face he saw toward him fast asleep was not that of the prince, but a stranger, at least he was a stranger now. He took a step forward and the Shade’s eyes popped opened and stared into Chen’s. They instantly became black and hard and Chen froze. Another figure shifted beneath the Shade and Luhan sat up, bringing the Shade up with him.

 

“Chen,” Luhan said and his eyes widened, the scraps of clothe that still hung on his arms, falling away.

 

The guard lifted the pole and static collected along it. “What have you done?”

 

The Shade moved from the bed and began to move. Chen charged at him, swinging the pole and lightening cracked in the room, striking the spot where the Shade once stood. The guard swung around, searching into the dark of Luhan’s room for the Shade. He felt a shifting in the air behind him and turned only to have his feet knocked out from under him, but he brought the pole around. It slid through the mist just as the Shade disappeared again and he felt a kick to his side.

 

“Kai, stop!” Luhan yelled.

 

Chen stood and lightening cracked again, centimeters away from where the Shade stood in the dark. The guard started to charge for him again, only to have the prince lung from his bed and grab his leg.

 

“Stop! Kai, go, go away!”

 

The guard shook himself free of Luhan’s grasp and started after the Shade again, but he disappeared. Chen groaned and tried to feel for where the Shade would appear again, but there was nothing.

 

“He left, relax,” the prince said.

 

“What happened, Luhan, why was he here? I left Kris to watch you, where is he?”

 

“Stop.”

 

Chen turned and saw the prince sitting on the floor. A sheet was wrapped around his legs and his white night shirt covered nothing on his chest. The guard approached and saw hot pink spots covering the prince’s neck. His eyes traveled along the torn fabric on Luhan’s arms to his hands. The prince reached out and plucked a white rose from the ground, twirling it until one petal fell loose, a water droplet following after it. The princes’ body shook and Chen leaned next to him, bringing Luhan’s body to him, the flower falling away.

 

“Luhan…you…”

 

“Do not…do not talk…it…hurts,” the prince said.

 

Chen reached out and picked up the white blossom, staring at it as the prince cried in his arms. He knew very well how much it hurt. 

 


	12. History

**History :**

 

 

 

After seventeen days of being called in to entertain Sehun, the weapon finally gave into the fact that the abuse of his body, physically and sexually, nor his companionship was enough for the stressful prince. Chanyeol finally called for the healer. At first he sat with Sehun on his bed as D.O talked, but the prince only played with his hand, lightly caressing it, only to squeeze it hard almost breaking the fingers, ignoring D.O’s questions to coax the prince into saying what was wrong. Chanyeol had a guess as to why Sehun was in such a state, but he kept from speaking his thoughts as he did not understand why his conversation with the Shade would upset the prince. Eventually, he decided the distraction his presence brought to Sehun hindered the healer’s work and pulled away even as the prince commanded he come back.

 

As each day passed, the healer switched positions around the room gradually getting closer to the prince’s bed, whispering soft assurances alternated with humming or just plain silence. During one of these boughts of silence, the prince slowly rose from the cocoon of sheets he had tucked himself in, only getting up when needed. He blinked his eyes and moved his head to look around the room, blank eyes meeting the healer’s. D.O watched with large curious eyes and waited for the prince to speak. Instead, he was surprised when a tear slipped down the boy’s cheek. The prince gasped and looked down at his lap. His hands clenched at his knees into the sheets that wrapped around his lower body and began to shake. Tears slid free and fell onto the tan sheets making dark spots.

 

“Oh…Sehun.”

 

The healer felt his chest clench and he stood from the chair he had placed beside the bed. He lifted a knee onto the large mattress and crawled to where the prince sat silently sobbing. He reached out and brought the boy into his arms and rested Sehun’s head on his shoulder. Softly, he stroked the younger’s brown hair, his cheek against the crown of his head.

 

“Sehun…Sehun, it has been so long since you have cried it seems. Tell me, please, what is wrong.”

 

The healer rubbed his ring clad hand up and down Sehun’s back, encouraging strength to seep into the prince so he could speak of what troubled him.

 

“Kyungsoo.”

 

The call of his name was unexpected. Since the game players had been chosen, the prince had dropped all use of real names with those who had to change theirs. It was not unwelcome, though. It was nice to hear Sehun call him as he use to in that usual town, and it swooned how vulnerable he truly was. He hummed in acknowledgement and nudged Sehun to continue.

 

“Luhan…he…”

 

“This is about Luhan?” D.O asked. Yes, it could only be something that had to do with the Mafic prince. Only that would bring Sehun into such a state.

 

“I hate him,” Sehun growled into the healer’s shoulder.

 

“Sehun, you do not mean that.”

 

“I do…I want him to die. He is a liar.” The prince lifted himself away and held tight to D.O’s collar, bringing the healer’s face close to his. His eyes were in circled in red and he clenched his teeth as he spoke. “He is a manipulating liar. He always has been. He promised me such much, so much.”

 

“None of it was his fault,” the healer said, trying to defend the Mafic prince. Even if he was pelted against the other prince, D.O truly did not wish him dead.

 

Sehun shook him. “He should have told me. He should have told me I was going to die!”  
  


D.O grabbed Sehun’s shoulders and forced him still. “Stop this, Sehun. You are not going to die.”

 

The prince’s hands fell loose from his collar and he looked down at his lap once again. “I will because their Shade will come after me. He has not come yet, but he will. He is waiting, waiting to see what happens.”

 

D.O lifted the prince’s face to force him to look into his eyes. He smiled trying his best to look reassuring though he was having his own doubts about his words. “Sehun, you are just being paranoid. You will be fine; you have Baekhyun and the rest of us to protect you. Besides, a prince has never died from the game.”

 

Sehun pulled his face away and glared at D.O. “This is different then all the previous games. Kai will not kill Luhan. Not because the guard is too strong or because he was not brainwashed into being a perfect puppet. Luhan will manipulate him…has manipulated him.”

 

D.O stared at Sehun for a few seconds trying to understand what he met. He gasped and looked away feeling sorrowed by the two…the three of them.

 

“But…it is not his fault, Sehun. Think if you and Chanyeol were put—”

 

“The weapon and I are different,” Sehun interrupted. “There would be nothing like that; he would kill me the first chance he got. He would not hesitate. I want Luhan dead.”

 

“You would miss him when the game ended.”

 

The prince moved away, again cocooning himself in the sheets and stared at the wall opposite of D.O. “How could I miss him now when I considered my brother dead years ago?”

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

The Shade was in much the same state as his prince. For a while he sat in the usual corner of the room he was given for his own and stared out at the dark sky. He eventually switched spots when the weapon walked in with a tray of food. Kai stood up and moved to the almost untouched bed, ignoring the tingly in his legs that was caused for being in the same place for too long. He asked Chanyeol why the healer had not delivered the food as he was the one that usually did. The weapon explained that D.O was preoccupied with Sehun. He sat with Kai on the bed as the Shade ate with mechanical motions, dark eyes staring out the window. Kai turned when he hear Chanyeol muttering something that became louder when the weapon realized the Shade had hear. He spoke of his worry that what Kai had told him yesterday had upset the prince. The Shade was not sure of the meaning of upset, but he understood that the prince did not like that Luhan had said he loved him.

 

Chanyeol left when the food was gone and Kai lay back on the bed. He closed his eyes and tried to think. Jongin. That name kept replaying in his head. Luhan had cried it out when he had touched him like Sehun touched the weapon. He felt like he knew what it was, but the blocks in his head kept him from thinking to hard on it. Instead, he found himself frowning and a strange twisting would happen in his stomach when he pictured Luhan screaming the name. He felt…as if the Mafic prince should have continued to scream Kai if screaming the other’s name was something you did in those activities, but another part of him felt it was right for it to be Jongin and not Kai. 

 

Then he began to remember the prince’s expressions. He was beautiful. The Shade understood that. Even with tears running down his flushed face, head thrown back, lips parted, and eyes closed, he was beautiful, maybe even more than that. A shiver rippled through his body and he placed a hand on his lap, gripping himself. He gasped and an image of a laughing Luhan made its way into his mind. He sat up and tried to recall the image, but his thoughts were blocked.

 

The Shade brought his legs up on the bed and held his head in his hands. Jongin, Jongin, Jongin. The name brought flashes of images in his mind, but he could barely register what they were before they were blocked. He removed his hands from his face and looked out at the dark sky. He needed to see Luhan again. He still had questions.

 

Kai took no time to teleport out of the castle and make his way to the Mafic prince. He found Luhan sitting at his desk scribbling words down across his paper. He slowly approached him, coming up beside the prince’s desk, Luhan not pausing in his work.

 

“I know you are there,” Luhan said when he lifted his hand to dip his pen in ink, refilling it. “I have said many times before, if you are not here to kill me then leave.”

 

Kai stared at the prince as he began to scrawl down words again. Leave or kill him? The Shade had no desire to do either at the moment. He reached down and grabbed the prince’s collar, pulling him up. He slammed his lips down on Luhan’s and stayed like that, lips pressed against the prince’s, both of their eyes wide open. The prince’s eyes showed surprise before they turned sad and hurt. Kai was not hurting him; he glared and let the prince go. The prince fell back into his chair. He looked up at Kai with a pleading look. The Shade refused to leave though.

 

“Why are you here again?” the prince asked.

 

Kai ignored his question. “Answer me.”

 

“Answer you what? You have not asked anything,” the prince said and ran a hand through his hair in distress.

 

“Who is Jongin?”

 

The prince’s hand stilled at the question. The Shade saw him swallow, Adam’s apple bobbing slowly before he turned cautious eyes back on Kai.

 

“How did you find that name?”

 

“Last time…you screamed it. Tell me, tell me why it seems familiar. Tell me why there are words I do not understand. Beautiful, wishes, love—I do not understand what those mean, but I feel like…like I did at once.”

 

“That is…those…you do not need to understand them to do what you are supposed to.”

 

“I…know that, Luhan…but I can not kill you unless I know. My thoughts, they keep being blocked as if I can not freely think. When I woke up, I thought we were all the same,” Kai explained. He reached his hand up and stroked the triangle pin on the collar of his jacket. “I thought only of the game…but there is another level, something outside of the game…I do not understand what it is.”

 

“Do you…do you know why this game is played?” Luhan asked.

 

Kai thought and shook his head. “So the prince will die.”

 

Luhan shook his head. “No one really understands why, but it is played over and over by different people, different players. Do you know where those players come from?”

 

Kai shook his head again.

 

“From a world outside of this, a life outside of this.”

 

“Then I was not part of that,” Kai said. He remembered nothing of another life, only the blank emptiness of living in the tube.

 

“You were,” the prince said softly.

 

Kai stared at him. The prince lifted his head and looked back just as surprised. He moved his hand and covered his mouth.

 

“Tell me.”

 

The prince shook his head. He could feel the blocks coming on again and shook his head before he smashed his fist on the prince’s table, the ink jar falling over.

 

Luhan jumped and squeezed his eyes shut.

 

Kai clenched his fingers. He could feel the black ink seep between them and shook. He should just kill the prince. Every fiber of his body told him to reach out his hand and wrap it around the prince’s neck, leaving an inky black handprint on his corpse. But, something else held him back.

 

“Tell me…who Jongin is then.”

 

“Jongin…Jongin was our childhood friend,” the prince began reluctantly.

 

“Ours?”

 

“Sehun’s and mine.”

 

“More.”

 

“He…was a knight, what the guards were in their other life, but he was also an entertainer. I do not believe you know that word. He was taken away though, just over a year ago. That is all.”

 

Kai shook his head. “No, you called out his name. Last time, you called it out.”

 

“He…we loved each other, please do not make me say anymore.”

 

“You loved him…you said you love me.” Kai looked at the prince. His eyes were glazed with a thin sheen of tears that had not yet slipped free.

 

“Can you not understand without me telling you?” Luhan asked, voice wavering. “I expected you to kill me quickly, but instead you come here ever few days bringing those white roses and calling me things you do not know the meaning of. Why are you making me suffer more by hoping that you will not be Kai, that you are more than the Shade?”

 

The Shade tilted his head. “Who was I…if I am like the rest?”

 

The prince sighed. “Is this how you are going to kill me, from heartache?”

 

“Please.”

 

 “Jongin.”

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

D.O decided to leave the castle for some time after Sehun had fallen asleep. There was a month left in the game and he worried for the prince. The Mafic Shade had yet to appear before him, the paranoia and strange actions of Kai must have gotten to him. The healer wondered what it was the Mafic prince had told Kai.

 

He walked along the roads in the city of EXOTICA, passing by cars, paused in time. Part of the road was lifted up as if the tar had been laid too thick in the five inch space. D.O looked at it curiously, measure before clenching his fists. The healer lifted one leg and brought his foot down hard on the road blemish only to hear a crack. He sighed seeing the now foot long hole in the ground. It happened like this occasionally. D.O never realized how stressed he was when It came to the game until he tried to use his powers for more than comforting. He ended up destroying things.

 

The healer looked around for any sort of construction equipment he could put around the small crater he had made in the road so when the cars started moving again, they would not run over it. He looked up on the roads that moved crisscross above and saw a figure walking aimlessly off the ledge of one of them. He tried to call out to them, but they disappeared in a swirl of black mist before reappearing a few meters away.

 

“Kai?” D.O asked making out the face of the Shade before he disappeared again, reappearing closer. His dark eye looked into D.O’s and he saw exhaustion and confusion in it. Before he could say anything, the Shade’s eyes closed and he fell onto his knees.

 

“Kai!”

 

The healer quickly moved to keep the Shade from falling to the side. He sat on his knees, holding Kai up and shook him. “Kai, Kai are you alright? What happened?” He looked over the Shade for injuries, but found none.

 

“I…I see things,” the Shade said. “I see Luhan…Sehun…and they are little…and…” The Shade turned his head to D.O, cloud eyes searching his face. “Your name…what was it?”

 

“My name?” D.O’s eyes widened. “Kai…do you remember?”

 

The Shade’s eyes rolled back in his head and his head lolled to the side. His body ran with spasms for a few seconds as D.O held him close so he would not hurt himself before he could answer.

 

“I am…not Kai.”

 

“Then, who are you?” D.O asked. He ran a hand through Kai’s dark hair finding it soaked with sweat.

 

“I am a knight,” he began, voice soft and forced to a higher pitch. “Luhan is a princess. He does not want to be, but Sehun does not have sisters. He has a pretty older brother.” The Shade turned his head and rested it in the crook of D.O’s neck. “Kyungsoo, why did they take Sehun away?”

 

The healer swallowed hearing his name coming from the Shade’s lips. “He…he had to go to his own castle. He could not stay with Luhan.”

 

“He will still visit, right?”

 

D.O nodded. “Remember, he still came to play, and you and Luhan went to play with him often. You all played ball in the court with Suho and I.”

 

Kai nodded against his neck. His voice began to drop as he continued to ramble. “Sehun says he hates Luhan. He says he is a liar, than I can not be friends with both of them. I think I like Luhan, but he is older then me, so he will not like it…” The Shade trailed off, his voice coming back to its original baritone.

 

“I kissed Luhan,” the Shade said then chuckled. “He got mad. I kissed him again later and he let me. There is talk of the game again. Luhan is sad, so is Sehun.”

 

The Shade went quiet again.

 

“Keep going,” D.O said. He should not be encouraging the Shade’s memories, but he could not help but be fascinated by the idea that Kai would remember. He wanted to go and tell Suho, to assure him that all they had to do was keep Sehun safe now and they would get out of the game alive. Surely Kai would not want to kill Luhan after remembering.

 

“Zitao…he took my spot. They are going to suffer without me. I want to make love to Luhan, we try, but then they come and drag me out of bed,” Kai said, his voice began to waver and D.O could feel him shaking. “They are hooking me up to wires and doing tests. It hurts. They put a mask on me and push me in a tube. They start filling it up…and…and…”

 

“Kai, you are alright,” D.O assured as the Shade began to claw at his chest as if trying to escape the tube. “Kai…who are you?” 

 

The Shade went limp in D.O’s arms and whispered, “Jongin.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Run and Gun:**

 

 

 

Fourteen days were left. Kris stood on the roof of one of the buildings in the city and looked out. He turned his head from side to side, taking in the full view of EXOTICA. He had not seen Tao since the day he talked to him. With each passing day, he became more curious of where the Shade was and why he had yet to make a move to kill Sehun. The Kelsic prince could not be that well guarded that he could not even try. Or had Lay not yet tried to convince Tao that he needed to kill the prince. The weapon had feared this, feared that Lay would become selfish with Tao if the Shade remembered him. It did not matter though, not for the time at least. There were still other things that needed to fall into place for his plans to work. He was not in a hurry to stop the game after all.

 

Kris turned his head toward the Kelsic castle. He could see a figure standing on the ledge of one of the windows dressed in black. He stared at them wondering what they planned to do. The figure jumped and disappeared, reemerging throughout the city, coming closer and closer. Kris smiled thinking the Kelsic Shade’s timing was perfect.

 

“Kai,” Kris called out.

 

The Shade stopped on the roof of the building opposite of Kris and looked at him curiously.

 

“Come here, I pose no threat to you,” the weapon called.

 

The Shade looked at him warily before disappearing. He popped back up out of arm’s reach beside Kris.

 

“What is it? Am I not supposed to talk to you, Kris?”

 

The weapon was a little surprised being addressed by his name from the Shade. He studied Kai. His body posture was that of an assassin, loose, but easily manipulated into any fighting or defensive stance. But his eyes, they were not like Tao’s. And it was not in the sense that Tao’s eyes still showed some of his intelligence in memory, no, Kai did remember, he remembered it all.

 

“Now when did you get your memories back, Kai….or do I call you Jongin now?”

 

The Shade looked away. He lifted a hand and ran it through his dark hair. “Kai, I am Kai as long as the game is being played. How can you tell I remember?”

 

“The look in your eyes, you seem angry, betrayed. It is the same look the rest of us have.”

 

“I would rather not remember,” Kai said.

 

“I have a hard time believing that, Kai. You are off to see Luhan, correct?”

 

This time the Shade did look at him. “Of course I am, I am the Shade after all.”

 

“Yes, but you are not a killer. Did you get your memories back after you slept with him or did it take more than that?”

 

A hand was suddenly on Kris’ neck. It caught him by surprise and he looked down into Kai’s angry eyes.

 

“Why do you know about that?”

 

“You still are not completely your old self it seems,” Kris said, pulling the Shade’s hand away. “I know because I was supposed to be guarding Luhan then. I was on the other side of the halls, though. I figured only two things could happen if I left you two alone – you would kill him or your real feelings would show through.”

 

“You were going to let me kill your own prince?”

 

“I was not going to let you, but I know Luhan wants you to kill him.”

 

“I want to leave now. You…I was angry with you before.”

 

“Because I was the one that told Tao to take your place?”

 

Kai turned his back on the weapon. “I was going to protect Luhan.”

 

“You were going to kill Sehun.”

 

Kai shook his head. “Never, I could never; we planned to live out these one hundred days and no one was going to be hurt or die.”

 

“No one has died so far, Kai. Go see your Luhan.”

 

The Shade turned to Kris again. “I will not forgive you if anything happens to Luhan.”

 

“Nothing will happen to the Mafic prince, at least, I promise not to harm him.”

 

“What about Sehun? I do not wish to seem him hurt.”

 

“Unfortunately, that is now out of my control. I expected you to not kill Luhan, but not to remember your previous life. There are parts of the equation that are not perfect, Kai.”

 

The Shade stared at him for a moment. Kris stared back, challenging the Shade to defy him. Titles of blood might not matter in the game, but he knew that with his memories refreshed, the Shade would not think to go against him, not directly. When this was all done, Kai would be simply a failed assassin, and his role as a Knight, Kris was not sure what would happen to it.

 

“I will go now,” Kai said. He nodded to Kris before disappearing.

 

The weapon watched him as the teleported to the castle and disappeared somewhere inside.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

 

The Shade found Luhan in the library. He did not need to imagine the room; he walked straight to it, manually opening the door. The prince stood trailing his finger along one of the bookshelf, a couple books already tucked into the crook of his arm. He turned his head when he heard the door click shut behind Kai and looked at him with wide eyes. Kai teleported in front of him and reached his hands out to cup Luhan’s face. Before the prince could say anything, Kai kissed him. He pressed his lips eagerly onto Luhan’s and kissed him as if kissing him for the first time in years. That was what it felt like. He felt like it had been almost two years since he had really seen Luhan.

 

“K-Kai,” Luhan said and pulled away, using the books in his arms as a shield to keep Kai’s body from touching his. “Go away.”

 

The Shade felt sad. What was this face Luhan showed him? His pale face looked gray, pretty eyes dull and empty, it was the face he had showed him since Kai awoke as the Shade. How long had he had this face?

 

“Go away,” the prince repeated.

 

Kai reached for his triangular pin and unclipped it, sliding the white rose he had picked up before talking with Kris and held it out to Luhan.

 

“I do not want it.

 

“You use to like it when I brought you roses,” Kai said.

 

The prince’s eyes widened and he stared at Kai, lips parted in an ‘o’. Kai felt the edges of his lips pull up, his eyes crinkling into crescents. A smile, he had forgotten what those felt like. He walked up to Luhan and tucked some of his soft light brown locks behind his ear then placed the white rose there. He held Luhan’s shoulders and leaned in, kissing his cheek.

 

“You…you…no you could not possibly.”

 

Kai leaned into Luhan’s ear, lips brushing against the prince’s ear lobe as he spoke. “But I do, Luhan, I remember and I am sorry.”

 

The prince dropped his books and his arms came to cling around Kai’s neck. He buried his face into Kai’s chest. “Why…why do you remember? I never meant for you to remember.”

 

The Shade wrapped his arms around Luhan’s waist. “I am sorry to disappoint you then. I can not hurt you Luhan. I love you, even if I do not know you.”

 

The prince picked up his head and stared into Kai’s eyes, the dullness brightened by the tears wavering in his eyes. His eyelashes fluttered and he leaned up, kissing Kai. His hands moved up and into Kai’s hair, combing through the dark locks.

 

Kai tilted his head and kissed back, running his tongue along Luhan’s lips until the prince opened his mouth for him. He backed Luhan up into the book case and the prince groaned. Kai moved away.

 

“We can not do that, your guard will come.”

 

“Please, I need you. Go slow,” Luhan said and kissed Kai again.

 

The Shade pulled away. “Our first time…I am sorry it was like that.”

 

The prince shook his head. “It was fine…I wished he had remembered who I was, but it was fine.”

 

Kai kissed Luhan again, his lips moved to his jaw and down his neck. “I will make it up to you. I will make it like it should have been.”

 

The prince nodded and hitched his legs up around Kai’s waist. Kai continued to kiss down Luhan’s neck and slowly kneeled down on the floor. He tugged at the prince’s shirt and Luhan reluctantly moved his hands from Kai’s hair so the clothe could be thrown to the side. His fingers when to Kai’s shirt and began to unbutton. He pushed his finger underneath the black material and felt the skin of Kai’s chest and shoulder and pushed his shirt off his arms.

 

Kai’s fingers moved to Luhan’s pants. The prince’s breath hitched and he moved his hands to stop Kai.

 

“Wait…wait, do it slow or I will get too excited.”

 

The Shade licked his lips and nodded. He leaned down and began kissing Luhan’s neck again, then his shoulder and chest. He lightly sucked on one of the prince’s nipples and Luhan gave a quiet moan, chest arching into his mouth as he leaned back against the bookshelf. Kai again began to undo the prince’s pants and was successful in getting them off.  He moved his kisses lower. Lifting up one of Luhan’s legs, he kissed up his thigh to his knee and made a mark there earning a small whimper from Luhan.

 

The prince hand his hands on his face, covering all but his lips that formed an ‘o’ as he tried to control his breathing and his heart rate. Kai grabbed Luhan’s wrist and held them over the prince’s head. Luhan’s face was flushed pink and he quickly looked away to hide it.

 

“Let me see your face, Luhan. I want to make love to you, to look at you. If feels like it has been forever since I have seen you. Even the past eighty days, I feel like I have not seen you.”

 

“It all feels like a dream, a dream in the middle of a nightmare. Do you really know me now?”

 

Kai leaned in. He placed his forehead on the side of Luhan’s head as the prince still faced away, his nose lightly poking his cheek. “Yes I know you, I love you. It does not feel real to me either, I feel like I am hallucinating, but I can touch you. I want to touch you without trying to kill you.”

 

“Kill me, touch me, love me, I do not care as long as it is your hands,” Luhan said and turned his head.

 

Their lips brushed and Kai pressed his back against the prince’s. They kissed with opened mouths, tongue grazing as the Shade pressed fingers inside the prince, stretching him, making him whimper into the kiss. The Shade pulled away. He slicked himself and Luhan’s walls, wishing he could do more, and pushed in.

 

The prince clung to Kai, arms around his neck and thighs clamped at his waist. The Shade moved slowly at first, but his movements quickened. He held Luhan around the waist and kept his face in the crook of his neck, lips brushing over sensitive spots as they moved together. Luhan made a small noise before he bit down on the side of Kai’s jaw and came between their stomachs. Kai groaned and winced a bit at the pain, but came as well. He lay down on the library floor and pulled Luhan with him.

 

“Sorry…I bit you,” Luhan said.

 

Kai reached out and pushed the prince’s light brown bangs back. “It is fine. You had to keep quite.”

 

The prince reached out and touched Kai’s jaw then leaned in and kissed where he bit. “The game is almost over.”

 

“Yes, are you happy?”

 

Luhan shook his head. “This is the most dangerous part. It is not about ending the game any longer, it is about power now. When we learn we are candidates for the game, we believe it will just be fun; just fighting and no one will really die. Then they tell us.  It is not a noble death if you die, it is just sad. We learn to hate each other, learn not to trust, things we did not know before.”

 

“Yet, we can not hate the game,” Kai agreed.

 

“Because there is a reason it is played. What happened to you when they took you?”

 

Kai turned his head and looked at the ceiling. He sighed and closed his eyes. “They blindfolded me, knocked me out for a while. I woke up in the Kelsic dungeons on a table, strapped down. They yelled things at me and a sort of shock went through me when it seemed like I was not listening. Every now and then, they would push someone into the room and they would hug me. I think it might have been Kyungsoo…it probably only lasted a couple days before the mask was put on me and I was stuffed into the tube. It started to fill with a green gel. It burned, I felt like my skin was melting off, but it was cold, a cold burning. I can not remember how long I banged on the glass trying to call out, thinking of you shirtless on your bed where they had pulled me away from until my mine just went blank. You were the last thing I thought of, which probably made you the first thing I forgot.”

 

Luhan rested his head on Kai’s chest and traced his finger on his stomach. “I was going to make you go through that.”

 

“I wanted to be the Mafic Shade. I would not have to kill you and you would have control over me. I thought it was Sehun who made me the Kelsic Shade, I thought he had finally gone crazy with the hate he held for you…but it was Kris.”

 

“Kris?...Tao…Jongin, let us do something.”

 

“Jongin…you said my real name. Call me like that now. What do you want to do?”

 

“I want to go somewhere and try to understand how we can stop this game. I found something in a book, but I can not go if Chen follows me. You are not going to kill me any longer, so come with me.”

 

“There is a chance I might forget you. I might forget and want to kill you again.”

 

Luhan pecked his cheek. “I will risk it. Before the weapons come into play, let us go there.”

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

Lay could still feel Tao’s fingers on his body. He could still feel him pounding into him as he was bent over the table he now sat at. The Shade napped quietly beside him, head in his lap, the rest of his body strewn out along the chairs he had moved there so he could curl up by Lay. The healer stroked his black hair with one hand and stared across the table in his personal dining room blankly.

 

Tao had been coming to him on rarer occasions and each time, there were less and less conversations. Lay had come to understand what Kris meant when he asked him not to speak too much to the Shade. Tao remembered him, he remembered who Lay was to him and remembered what he needed from the healer, love and affection and sex, but the Shade was not his Zitao. He was only a part of him and Lay had to make do with that. He had to learn to live with an empty body that thought only of him and killing until the game ended and then…and then Lay was not sure what would happen then.

 

The Shade had fallen asleep already, but Lay continued to sit there, stroking his hair. Every time he shifted, Tao would nuzzle more into his lap and Lay would look down at his peaceful face and give a small smile. Then, he would look up and see the spot on the table where some of his cum had reached and try to keep the doubts from plaguing his mind.   

 

On the end of the table he sat was a vase of white flowers. He noticed a white rose placed among them. Luhan had brought it to him earlier, asked him if he would keep it alive. The healer had seen other roses scattered around different rooms in Luhan’s quarters when he did his rounds to check up on the other players. He also remembered them from before. The prince always had a white rose in his room.

 

Kai always gave them to him. It was the younger boy’s way of showing their older prince affection.

 

Lay stopped stroking Tao’s hair and reached out to touch one of the white petals. They were soft, but beginning to tinge with brown already, time beginning again when it was plucked from its bush. The healer tapped his unicorn pin then held his hand out. The rose’s creamy white petals fluffed out, the brown going back to a pale gold. Lay leaned down and smelt it, the rose smell heavier than the other flowers. He plucked the rose from the vase and tapped it against Tao’s sleeping face. The Shade’s nose scrunched up and he turned, his nose digging into Lay’s stomach and the healer chuckled lightly and put the rose back in the vase.   

 

He would keep the rose alive for Luhan, until the game ended, though he did not understand where it had come from. He needed to keep it alive. Lay went back to stroking Tao’s hair.


	14. Reflection

**Reflection:**

 

 

 

Suho stood before the mirror in the long hallways of his quarters. He stared at his face, studying the sinking skin around his eyes, the hollowing of his cheekbones. When had been the last time he ate? Was there even any food in the kitchens? He felt tired, too; his sleep schedule had been thrown of by the anxiety that began to plague him with the coming of the last days of the game. They were all still alive, just a week to go now, but that also meant the most dangerous part of the game was on its way, the part where players often died.

 

The leader sighed, his breath fogging up the glass of the mirror. He reached out and wiped it away. His eyes widened and he took a step back as he stared at the reflection in the mirrors, the face of the Mafic leader. Xiumin stared at him for a moment, face blank and dark, and then he turned and the image faded away, revealing Suho’s stressed marked face back to him. He placed a hand on his chest and turned his back to the mirror, leaning against the table under it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and took in the silence around him.

 

He wished D.O was there. Suho had resisted the urge to call the healer to him. He wanted to succumb to a world that was just the two of them, bodies combine, full of their breathing and moaning, but he knew doing that when it was so close to the end might be the turn of their relationship. But even so, he wished to even just hold the healer in his arms for a few hours. Perhaps when D.O was not so busy, he would ask to have a meal in the kitchen, their last for the game.

 

Suho pushed himself off the table and moved his hands in a circular motion and water appeared in the air. He turned toward the mirror and threw his hands forward. The water splashed across the surface, sum of it absorbed, but most just leaking down to the floor and table.

 

“Suho,” called Baekhyun from down the hall.

 

The leader wiped his wet hands on his jacket and turned his body toward the hall and waited for the guard to be closer. “Hello Baekhyun.”

 

“You called?”

 

“Yes. Who is guarding Sehun right now?”

 

“Chanyeol is with him right now. D.O and he have been switching off every few hours being in the room with him. He has been more depressed as of recent,” the guard explained.

 

Suho nodded. He had not been to Sehun’s quarters often, but his own where right above the prince’s and sometimes he could hear small sounds like crying or moaning when he walked back the floor above his bedroom. The prince’s depression was the biggest reason the leader had decided to try not to call on D.O, though he could not help but be a little jealous that the prince was receiving all of the healer’s attention, he understood his fragile mind needed D.O more than Suho did at the time.

 

“Alright, have you seen Kai recently?” Suho asked.

 

Baekhyun shifted his stand; one hipped cocked out to the side and a hand resting on his chin as he thought. “I had caught glimpses of him teleporting about for the past week. I was able to call out to him once, but he excused himself rather quickly. His face bothered me though.

 

“What was wrong with his face?” Suho asked.

 

“It looked…it looked different, he looked different. He carried himself differently. It was like…like he use to.”

 

Suho looked curiously at Baekhyun. Kai had been a knight, but only trained with Baekhyun and the others occasionally. He was special, a boy picked up from the city to be playmates with the princes and eventually used in the game. Of course Suho was sure Kai had not known he had always had a definite place in the game, but it had worked out all the same. He had heard the Shade had wanted to be the Shade for the Mafic side, to protect both Sehun and Luhan. Had Baekhyun not volunteered for the Kelsic guard position, Kai may have been drafted to it instead of being forced into the position that would hurt him and Luhan the most.

 

“I doubt it was the same, Baekhyun.” Suho remembered how Kai carried himself. He always tried to do it gracefully and smooth, like he was dancing, especially in front of Luhan. When all the royals got together, he always found it amusing how the older prince would be entranced by it. But, Kai, the Shade, moved like liquid metal, oozing through space, and hardening here and there to take form. It was something quite different from dance; there was no life to it.

 

“It looked the same, and his face…his eyes…I know it sounds impossible, but could he have remembered?”

 

Suho blinked. “Remembered?”

 

“Yeah, he just seemed more intelligent and Chanyeol told me…no, nevermind.”

 

“What is it, Baekhyun? Is there something wrong?”

 

“Chanyeol told me that Kai asked him what love is. Apparently Luhan told him he loved him.”

 

“Luhan…is not supposed to mention those things,” Suho said.

 

Baekhyun nodded. “I know, but I get a feeling he did not mean to. Kai goes over there often, but he always comes back without killing Luhan.”

 

“Where is the Shade now?”

 

“I have not seen Kai for a few days, but the Mafic Shade has been lurking around outside. He has yet to come close though.”

 

Suho nodded and turned to the mirror. “We need to send a message to the Mafic side. I just received their message a replied. I was going to have D.O do it, a peaceful message, but he is busy.”

 

“Yes, I will do it. I can send one to the Mafic healer in D.O’s place. I only hold grudges with the other guard and Shades.”

 

“Please do so.” Suho stepped back and let the guard take his place in front of the mirror.

 

The guard lifted his right hand, a series of chains making a glove on his hand with the shape of the sun in the middle. He lifted his other hand and a ball of light appeared in both. He touched them together then pulled his left hand back now with a larger ball of light in it and shot it at the mirror. The mirror reflected the light, causing the room to become blindingly bright before it absorbed it. For a few seconds, the image of the Mafic healer sitting at a table appeared in the mirror before it disappeared at the reflective surface stilled, showing the guard and the leader standing there.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

The Mafic healer and leader sat in the healer’s drawing room on opposite sides of the table. Xiumin had just come from his own quarters after sending Suho his message that he was required to do when the last days of the game approached. It had been a simple message that revealed no intent whether ill or good in the game. He had not had a chance to speak with Kris over what sort of message to send the other leader on his intent for the last days and so decided there was no intent at all, which was true on Xiumin’s part at least. He just wanted to survive, to go back to the world where time passed without your knowledge and you wished for more of it.

 

It had been peaceful so far, at least for the Kelsic side. Chen had come to him and told him that the Shade, Kai, had been visiting Luhan. Xiumin worried over it, not so much that the Shade had been close to Luhan on numerous occasions, but what he was doing with the prince. Chen had told him what he had saw over a week ago and again a few days before on the library floor in Luhan’s quarters – a naked prince covered in the signs of love making. Could Shades even make love? Xiumin would have thought them incapable of such things. Xiumin lifted his head. Was anyone capable of love?

 

Something wet landed on his hand. Xiumin looked up at the ceiling where water condensation collected and formed into a dense water droplet, falling and frowned. He had not stayed for the reply and it seemed Suho had gotten a bit angry with his ambiguous message if he had sent water through the mirrors, a small dose of his powers to show his irritation. He could not blame the other leader for feeling like such, though. It made him anxious for the return message, to see what the Kelsic intention was. 

 

Xiumin stared ahead at the healer. He looked tired and his eyes seemed far off. The leader had come to see Lay in hopes that his apprehension could be lessened in his presence as well as visit for the message from the Kelsic castle.

 

Suddenly, the healer jumped in his seat. Xiumin watched him curiously. Lay lifted a hand and hovered it on a small flip mirror in front of him on the table. He flipped the mirror so the upside down reflective side faced Xiumin. The leader caught sight of the reflection of the face of the Kelsic guard.

 

“What was it?” Xiumin asked.

 

“Passive,” the healer said. “The guard used his power just to send a picture of his face.”

 

“So they want to live out the rest of the game without fighting as long as the Shades allow.”

 

“There has been no real controversy between our castles. Both princes are still alive and well.”

 

“Luhan is not well,” Xiumin said.

 

Lay looked at him, head tilted to the side. “What do you mean? What has happened to Luhan?”

 

Xiumin leaned back in the chair and brought his hands on top of the table. “Chen reported to me that the Shade visits him often.”

 

The healer’s eyes widened and his mouth opened and closed as he looked for words.

 

Xiumin tapped the table with the tips of his fingers. “You are surprised. They were good at keeping it a secret.”

 

“How is Luhan not dead yet?” Lay asked. “If the Shade was good enough to so easily see Luhan so often, he could have killed him already.”

 

“You would think that, but it seems feeling still linger when even when memories do not.”

 

The healer looked away. “You think their feelings still linger even after the transformation?”

 

“I do not know why not. Even if they were forgotten, they would remember again. Is that now how love works?”

 

“Xiumin…are you not going to heighten the guard around Luhan knowing this? If Kai has been visiting him, he will definitely kill him in these last few days if we do not keep a tighter watch on him.”

 

Xiumin sighed and pushed himself up from the table. He trailed his hand along the surface of the table and walked closer to where the healer sat at the other end. “I suppose you are right. I will ask you and Kris to keep guard with Chen. I will take a around as well.”

 

“Alright, that seems fair, shall I see to the prince now?” the healer offered.

 

“That would be good, but before you go, I have something I am curious about. Have you talked to Tao since he awoke?”

 

“I thought you had no interest in what he is doing, but yes…I have seen him often.”

 

“I do not, but I have to check up on these things now and then. Do you know of his intent toward the Mafic prince for these last coming days?”

 

“Is he not still intent on killing him?” Lay asked.

 

“He has yet to make a move on the Mafic prince. He should have attacked at least once.”

 

“Perhaps…he is like the other Shade.”

 

Xiumin took a few steps closer and leaned against the table’s edge. “Why would he be like Kai? Their situations are not the same. WE all know the relationship between Luhan and Jongin.”

 

“Yes, you believe Kai can not kill the prince because he still has the feelings of Jongin. What if…what if Tao has not killed Sehun because of his feelings for the one he loves?”

 

Xiumin studied the healer’s face. His long jaw line looked soft from his frown, the dimple on his right cheek barely visible. He countenance seemed frail as if it would break like a twig with any more words. The leader’s eyes continued to roam Lay’s face, and then he saw it. A dark red mark made its home on the side of the healer’s neck. Lay gave out a small cry of surprise when Xiumin pushed his head to the side to get a better view of the hickey on his neck.

 

“In the time Zitao spent away from you, transforming, did you find a new lover, Yixing? Is it Chen? Kris maybe?” Xiumin asked and touched the red spot noticing fainter ones in the same area.

 

The healer pulled away. “I have done no such thing. I love Zitao.”

 

“The where did these marks come from?”

 

Lay stared at the mirror in front of him and bit his lip.

 

“You are inclined to give me this information, Lay; I am the leader.”

 

The look the healer gave him froze Xiumin more than his own powers ever had. He never wanted to use his position as leader on anyone. He knew he was not cut out for it.

 

“He remembers.”

 

Xiumin looked at Lay surprised. “What does he remember?”

 

“Me, he remembers me.”

 

“How? How can he possibly remember you?”

 

“Kris tampered with the machines in the dungeons after Tao began his transformation,” Lay said then stood up. “I promise I never once told Tao not to kill Sehun, I have not aided in deterring his mind.”

 

However, the leader did not hear anything past the weapon’s name.

 

“Kris?”

 

Xiumin turned away and hurried out of the room.  

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽**

 

 

The Mafic weapon sat in his office, taking notes in a book. The air about him seemed calmed and pleased and unready for the sudden slamming of his door when Xiumin finally found him. The leader was breathing hard, eyes wide and wavering. He took large steps into the room and stood in the middle of the study just staring at Kris.

 

The weapon stood up from his desk calmly. He walked around it and leaned against the edge of it, facing Xiumin.

 

“You look urgent, what is wrong, Xiumin?” the weapon asked.

 

The leader continued to stare at Kris until the weapon shifted out of impatience. Xiumin took smaller steps in approaching Kris this time, coming up until there were only centimeters between them. He looked up at Kris, eyes now narrowed, but still wavering.

 

“What game are you playing, Kris?”

 

Kris’ eyebrows pulled together as he looked down at Xiumin. “Are we not all playing the same game?”

 

“I am not talking about this game; I am talking about your plans. Why did you not tell me? You should have confided in me, Kris.”

 

Kris closed his eyes and shook his head. “What are you talking about Xiumin? I can not read your mind, that is not my power. There is only a few days until I come into play, so please be straight with your words, I have things I need to map out.”

 

“Oh yes, that is all you ever do, plan and map and you do not tell anyone anything. Why can you not confide in me? Tao, Tao! You did not tell me about tampering with his machines. Why would you do something like that?”

 

“I needed to see if it would work,” Kris said.

 

“And did it?”

 

“Yes, Tao only remembers Lay. I wanted to give that to him.”

 

“Is it only because he was your little brother of sorts?”

 

Kris looked away. “I have talked to you about this, my need to have free reign in this game.”

 

“Yes, because of your plans. And is having Tao remember Lay part of your plans? What about Luhan? Did you know he and Kai have been sleeping together?”

 

“Kai got his memory back. I am not sure if it is because of my tampering with Tao’s or simply because it was Luhan.”

 

Xiumin stood there and just stared up at Kris. “Kai…he remembers being Jongin?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“They…both remember then? So they will not fight anymore?”

 

Kris shook his head. “I do not know about Kai. And Tao…the only memories I was able to let him have were those of Lay. Even the memories he has of me only pertain to Lay.”

 

“And why would he need memories of you?”

 

“I am the one that told him he should take the place of the Mafic guard.”  
  


“I know that. You made some sort of deal with him, and to fulfill it I had to be the leader. I did not imagine it was a deal that would involve tampering with the machines. What else have you done that could ruin the peacefulness of the game?”

 

“Ruin the peacefulness? I thought I had brought quite a bit of peace already. No one has been hurt, and Luhan has his Jongin back.”

 

Xiumin shook his head. “You do not understand. There is physical hurt and psychological hurt, Kris.” 

 

“And you have I hurt psychologically?” the weapon challenged.

 

Xiumin turned his head and sighed. “Me.” He placed his hands on the weapon’s shoulders and leaned up, pressing his lips lightly to the taller man’s than lowered back. “I hate you so much. You could have told me your plans, what you wanted out of all of this. I could never judge you, Kris, never.”

 

“Because you hate me?” Kris asked. His hands came up and placed hesitantly at Xiumin’s waist.

 

“You know why I hate you. Just tell me if there will be any more surprises that will make me realize how much you do not trust me.”

 

The weapon shook his head. “There is nothing else. I did not plan on Kai regaining his memory. Everything from that moment on will have to be at the will of the Shades. What is stronger, their urge to love or their urge to kill?”

 

Xiumin nodded. He started to reach up again, knowing Kris would turn away this time, but still wanting to try when the door opened with a bang. The leader pulled away and turned to stare at the distressed healer.

 

“Lay, what is wrong?”

 

“Luhan…he…he is gone.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Emergency:**

 

 

 

Kai teleported quickly across the city and occasionally glanced behind him to see if there was anyone watching him. He stayed to the shadows the tall steel building cast in hopes that his dark clothes would help in hiding him. The Shade finally got to the Mafic castle and looked up at it to where he could see a figure past by one of the windows and disappear into a room. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before he teleported to the same room.

 

The room was pitch black, no source of light other than that that streamed in from under the door. Kai moved through the dark room with ease, though, searching for the outline of another body. The Shade slowed when he saw the faint outline of a body curled up on the floor. He leaned down and scooted over to it, wrapping his arms around their frame from behind. The body stiffened at his touch until they felt Kai’s breath against their neck and relaxed, leaning back into Kai’s chest.

 

“Jongin?” a soft voice asked.

 

Kai nodded and kissed the back of Luhan’s neck.

 

The prince side and rattled with something on the floor.

 

“What are those?”

 

“Papers, I wrote things down for us. We need to leave soon,” Luhan explained. “There’s not even a week and I know it takes a few days to walk there.”

 

“Where are we going? I could just teleport and come back to tell you what I find.”

 

Kai could feel the prince shake his head. “No, I need to go. I have to go. I wish you could teleport both of us together.”

 

The Shade shook his head. “I told you, you could die if I did. It is one thing to teleport with a rose, but a whole person is dangerous. It is dangerous every time I do it myself. I die every time, at least that is what it feels like, being ripped apart and rebuilt again in another place in a matter of milliseconds.”

 

“I do not like your power, Kai. Please try not to use it as much,” Luhan said and Kai felt him turn his head around to look at him in the dark.

 

“I can try to use it less, but I can not just stop using it all together.”

 

The Shade stared into Luhan’s eyes in the dark. He lifted up a hand and moved it until he felt the prince’s soft cheek. Luhan leaned into his hand and rubbed his cheek into it. Kai could feel his eyelashes flutter closed as they caressed his hand then open again so they were staring into each other’s eyes in the dark. Kai leaned forward and pressed his lips to Luhan’s. They kissed softly, just lips barely pressed against each other, massaging softly as if trailing a rose’s petal on their lips.

 

Luhan moved away when he heard footsteps coming toward the door and Kai held tight to him. They listened to the footsteps until they stopped in front of the door of the room the hid in the dark of. Kai held his breath, urging his hearth to beat slowly, in sync with Luhan’s so they could seem one person until the feet turned and began to walk again. They stayed perfectly still until the sound was gone again and Luhan pulled away from the Shade and stood up.

 

“We need to go quietly. I do not know how long before they notice that we are gone, but I want to be as far away as possible before they notice.”

 

Kai stood up as well and reached out for Luhan’s hand. He could heart the prince crinkle the papers he had brought in his other hand before leading Kai to the door.

 

“We are going to walk slowly. We have to try and be one as much as possible, at least until we are out of the castle.”

 

“Would it not be easier for you to sneak out alone and meet me outside the castle?”

 

“Do you want to leave me?”

 

Kai enlaced their fingers. “I never want to leave you.”

 

“I would be afraid to leave without your hand already in mine. It would be easier for them to find one of us if we are in two different places.”

 

“Alright, I understand.”

 

Luhan pushed the door opened and looked out of the door before pulling Kai out into the hall. He looked left and right and walked down the hall then another hall. They occasionally stopped when they heard footsteps and went into a room before continuing. Once out of the prince’s quarters, their footsteps quickened. There was less chance of being found by the guard or the others with the path Luhan had chosen to take, but more likely that the guard would notice the shift in the prince’s presence. By the time he got outside, Chen would definitely know he was gone.

 

From another hall, Kai could hear someone else, what felt like a healer, making his way toward Luhan’s quarters. He indicated it to the prince and they began to run once they reached the end of the hall. They used the back door to escape. It led to the beach and Kai began to lead, something pulling along.

 

“The mountains, the ones caught between day and night,” Luhan instructed.

 

The Shade nodded and his eyes fixed onto the cliff at the end of the beach. Walking from one castle too another took half a day for someone who could not fly or control time like the Shades. Just getting to the cliff, had the sun been moving, would take from the midday to sunset. Then there was climbing the rocks and the mountain to wherever Luhan wanted them to go.  And Kai could not use his powers.  

 

Kai pulled Luhan along, pulling him up every time the more delicate older boy tripped over stray sea plants washed up when the tide still moved, or large lumps of sand. The Shade’s dark close looked covered in powder and the white pants and shirt, minimal armor on his shoulder, practice gear, looked to be tan and eroded.

 

By the time they were close to the cliff, he knew the Mafic castle had began to look for Luhan and perhaps the Kelsic castle as well. He knew that someone was already watching them. The Shade turned his head, trying to see who it was and spotted the other Shade off in the distance. Tao.

 

Kai wanted to stop, ask the other Shade about their conversations before, about knowing things, but the Mafic Shade just lifted a hand and waved them off then turned and disappeared.

 

Kai continued to run with Luhan.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

Chen stood in front of the opened door of the last room he had felt the prince in. He stared into the blackness trying to find any sign of a body lying inside it. There was nothing, not a single outline of a person. He would have walked the area of the dark room, searched the wall for any source of light, if only his legs would move. He was rendered stiff, like a statue by the feeling the room gave off. Unmistakably, Luhan had been in there, Chen could feel lingering traces of his presence, but there was something in there as well, something dark that he swear he had felt before, but it was different.

 

The guard had taken his rounds slowly, not wanting to miss a single sign. He had passed by this room, felt the single barely there presence of the prince, and then continued on. Chen had been on the other side when he heard Lay’s hurried steps. The healer had asked him where Luhan was, saying he would help with doubling the guard for the last few days of the game was upon them. The guard nodded and that was when he realized he had lost track of the faint presence of Luhan. He had felt the prince moving around leisurely moving in the direction of the kitchen. He was going to turn around and follow, but then the healer began talking to him, explaining what Xiumin had told him about the messages that were required to be sent around that time and then the prince was gone.

 

Chen was not sure how long he had just stood there. The healer and he had done a quick run around the prince’s quarters and then stopped at the door Chen had left the prince at. When he opened it, he just could not move anymore and Lay ran off to find the leader. The guard turned his head when he felt footsteps coming up the stairs that led to the prince’s quarters. Kris, Xiumin, and Lay walked quickly over to him. Xiumin stepped forward.

 

“What happened? Is Luhan gone?”

 

Chen nodded. “I can not sense him. He is…most likely too far away.”

 

“He snuck out? Why would he run away at a time like this? There are only a few days left,” Lay said.

 

“Kai,” Xiumin answered. “He must have run away with the Shade.”

 

Kris stepped toward the door. He reached a hand into the dark room and brought it back out. “It feels like he was here.”

 

“No, that is not what Kai feels like. The Shade’s aura is sneakier and darker than that. I could not detect this at all.”

 

“Because Luhan is a crafty prince,” Kris continued. “He was able to turn Kai back into Jongin.”

 

“Jongin?” the guard asked…Jongin, the special knight that always accompanied Luhan and Sehun.

 

“I thought if felt a bit like Tao…” Lay said. “So, Kai does remember?”

 

“Yes, he remembers everything.”

 

Chen looked between the three other players. He felt confused. Remember? Who remembered and what did they remember? Jongin? Kai? He knew Kai had been Jongin…was that why the aura felt familiar. He had not often interacted with the special knight, but Chen remembered him.  But still, Luhan had run away? And with the Shade, whether he was once someone important to him or not, he was still the Shade and even with his memory back or whatever the other three were talking about, he could not trust Kai. He had a job, and that was to keep the Shade away from Luhan. So far, he had not done a very good job of that. He needed to fix that, to be a good guard. Would it not be bad to return from the game what the record he had for protecting the prince?

 

Though Luhan was an unfair prince, sneaking around his weaknesses and hiding, running away like that.

 

Chen’s feet finally allowed him to move and he pushed past the other three players. “I am going after him. Protecting the prince is my job and I have let it slip enough as it is.”

 

“Chen,” the leader called, but the guard just grabbed a rod from behind one of the many statues he hid his weapons in the case of a sudden attack and ran. He would not stay to hear the leader command him to stop, he had to do this.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

Chen rushed out of the castle. He tried to sense where Luhan had run off to. He headed toward the beach and saw footsteps in the sand, two pairs that led around the perimeter of the kingdom on the beach side toward the Kelsic. The guard followed them, but stopped when he saw wind blow across the sand in a fast burst. He held his arms over his face to keep from getting any in his face. When it had passed, he could not see the footprints any longer and a form stood in its wake.

 

“Baekhyun?”

 

The Kelsic guard smiled and waved his jewel gloved hand at Chen. “Hello, Chen. What brings you here; you are pretty close to the Kelsic side.”

 

“Get out of my way, Baekhyun; I am trying to find Luhan.”

 

“Oh, it seems I am not the only one with a case of run away prince. However, I have already found mine,” the Kelsic guard said and made a gesture to an area not far off that was surrounded by large boulders and sand, collecting all the sunlight that streamed into the Kelsic side. Sand was blown about everywhere, some moving across the boulders toward the beach and sprinkled on the two guards. “He is just throwing a fit, it happens, but for Luhan to run off, I wonder why he would do that.”

 

Chen bit his lip and growled. His hand tightened on the bar. “I do not have time for you Baekhyun, the Shade took him, and I have to find him.”

 

Baekhyun’s teasing smile disappeared. “Kai? If he has him, would he not be dead?”

 

“Your Shade is weird, they said he will not kill Luhan, but I think he still might.”

 

“How is he weird?” Baekhyun asked.

 

“Even you guys do not know. It seems he remembers…he is Jongin.”

 

The Kelsic guard looked down at his jeweled hand, moving his thin delicate fingers about. “Jongin…the special knight that was Luhan’s lover.”

 

“Lover, killer, is there much of a difference?”

 

“No, not really.”

 

“Then let me pass, he could be dead any minute now.”

 

“And then the game would end a few days early,” Baekhyun said. He lifted both his hands and clapped them together. “I am afraid I can not let you pass, Chen.” He pulled his hands apart and light appeared, taking on the shape of twin swords. Baekhyun held them tightly and took a stance in the sand.

 

Chen gripped his rod tighter and took a step closer. The air around him crackled and thunder boomed. “Get out of my way.”

 

“Fight me.”

 

Lightening cracked across the sky and Chen ran toward Baekhyun. He lifted his rod into the air, static crackling along the metal pole and swung it at Baekhyun. The other boy jumped out of the way and ducked under Chen’s arms, sliding his swords of light near Chen’s torso and the Mafic guard side stepped as not to get cut.

 

Chen turned, swinging his pole again and it missed the other guard by a couple of inches. Baekhyun jumped back and slid on the sand, falling and rolling. One of his swords disappeared and he righted himself, rubbing one of his eyes. Chen took the chance and sent lightening in his direction. The Kelsic guard rolled out of the way and stood up. He pushed his gloved hand out in front of him and a light beam head toward Chen. The guard swung his pole blindly at the light beam, reducing its energy and sent some back at Baekhyun.  

 

The Kelsic guard ducked and held his one light sword with both hands, running at Chen. Chen blocked him with his pole. Baekhyun removed one hand and tried to send light energy beneath the protection of the pole, but Chen swung his pole at Baekhyun’s feet. The Kelsic guard jumped, landing on the pole. A streak of lightening came down toward him and Baekhyun jumped behind Chen just as the lightening hit the pole. Chen gave a groan as the pole absorbed the energy and turned to attack Baekhyun. The Kelsic guard jumped out of the way of the pole and held up his sword, blocking another streak of lightening.

 

They both walked back, looking at each other and breathing hard. Chen could remember thinking that this day would come, the day they would see each other and have to fight and they would not stop with a few scratches and bruises maybe a sprained joint. There would be blood and wounds that would not heal for years after the game finished.

 

Chen looked at Baekhyun, their eyes making contact. He could feel his chest get tighter at the intense determination in the other guard’s eyes. Baekhyun would really kill him. For whatever reason, he was not going to allow Chen to take Luhan away from Kai. It could not have to do with winning. There was no winning in this game, only loosing. They had never fought with hopes of making someone else loose, only for their own success. Whatever it was, Chen was just as determined to get Luhan back. This was the last fight after all, the last show to see who was better. Baekhyun might be temporarily not watching his prince, but he could not let the Kelsic guard beat him. It seemed Baekhyun could see the same determination in Chen’s eyes as a small sad, but excited smile formed on his lips and he mouth: “Come.”

 

The Mafic guard raised his hand and twirled his pole around his body. More static collected on it and he held it out in front of him. Baekhyun shifted position and produced another sword to replace his previously lost one. Chen let out a roar and then charged.

 

They met half way, light clashing against light and metal. Thunder boomed all around the beach, lightening crackling across the sky making the afternoon like sky in the area before the Kelsic zone brighter than the sky above the Mafic castle. Chen swung his pole around, always missing Baekhyun by a few millimeters while trying to escape the other guard’s swords. Then, he felt his foot slip on the golden sand. He swung his pole high above his head in attempt to use gravity to get a good blow on Baekhyun, but that left his chest vulnerable.

 

Chen screamed with he felt light pierce through his left shoulder and dropped his pole. He lay on the ground holding his shoulder in one hand, barely able to even move his fingers on his left arm. It burned, like he was melting from the inside. Baekhyun pulled his sword out and shook his hands. The light swords disappeared and he walked over to Chen’s pole, kicking it until it rolled into the sea. He turned and looked at Chen as he fought to get on his knees.

 

Gritting his teeth, the Mafic guard lifted his head to look at Baekhyun. “You destroyed it.”

 

“For the rest of the game you will not be able to heal and even after that it will take very long.”

 

“You destroyed my knight career. Do you hate your enemy that much?”

 

Baekhyun walked across the sand back to where Chen kneeled. “You are not my enemy, you were my competition.”

 

“What kind of sportsmanship is it to do this, Baekhyun? You should have just killed me.”

 

“I did this so you will not die, Chen. There are only two ways the relationship we have could have gone.”

 

“I hoped it would not go this way, at least not for us take different ways,” Chen said. “It seems you hate me, you want to destroy me.”

 

“If that is what you think, you are wrong.” Baekhyun kneeled down in front of Chen and removed his hand from the wound, replacing his own over it and looked into Chen’s eyes. “I think we are on the same side.”

 

Chen watched with wide eyes as Baekhyun stood and started toward the boulder surrounded area of sand where the Kelsic prince was still throwing a fit. The Kelsic guard turned when he was a few yards away.

 

“If you understand what I am saying, Jongdae, if we are actually going the same way, then do not go after Luhan. You will not win.”


	16. Phoenix

**Phoenix:**

 

 

 

Luhan could feel the muscles of Kai’s back ripple against his chest. He bit his lip and shifted on the Shade’s back, his arms and legs hooked tightly around Kai’s body. The Shade’s hands stayed in place on the prince’s thighs as he walked through the foliage of the forest they found in the mountains. The prince had lost count of time after they had climbed the cliff what seemed like a week ago but was probably only a day. It had been a rough and long climb and Luhan had slipped multiple times, gaining scratches and bumps, falling, and would have been dead had Kai not teleported to catch him. He was sad to have made the Shade use his powers after asking him not to, but Kai had only promised not to use them unnecessarily. Luhan staying alive was a necessity at the moment.

 

Once they had made it to the top of the cliff, they had climbed across boulders and jagged rocks until they came to the beginning of one of the small forests that covered the mountains in splotches. At some point, the prince had stepped into a whole where they had begun a mining project in the forest and fallen forward. Kai had helped him up, and the prince held his hand tightly, trying not to show the pain he felt, but the Shade eventually noticed their pace was lagging and stopped. He had sprained his ankle in the hole and that was how he had ended up on Kai’s back for the past he was not sure how many hours.

 

The prince laid his head on Kai’s shoulders. He could feel the tips of the back of the Shade’s hair brush against his forehead. They felt a little sweaty and he wished he could walk on his own again. He had offered many times already, but Kai just gave him excuses – this was faster, the others were probably already on their way looking for the, the game was almost done – all good reasons, but the prince still felt like such a burden. He always felt like a burden.

 

“Luhan,” Kai said, voice strained, probably finally beginning to tire of carrying the prince on his back even with his enhanced abilities as the Shade.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Is it around here somewhere? I walked already the amount of paces you told me to.”

 

Luhan wriggled a bit on Kai’s back. “Let me down so I can see.”

 

With a bit of hesitation, the Shade let Luhan down from his back. Luhan leaned against Kai and struggled in his pocket for the sheets of paper he had brought. He unfolded one and looked around, trying to match the words on the papers to his surroundings. He pointed in one direction.

 

“That way; we should see it soon.”

 

Kai nodded and placed one arm around Luhan’s back and the other under his knees. “When we get there, I will see about your leg.”

 

The prince yelped when he was lifted, but nodded and held Kai around his shoulders, watching as they moved farther into the trees. The tall plants began to thin out in front of Luhan into what looked like a pathway and finally he caught sight of a stream.

 

“Follow the stream,” Luhan directed.

 

The body of dark green water became larger and larger the farther they went, the water still running though nothing else moved beneath its surface, fished stilled as if painted on the pebble covered bottom. Up ahead, Luhan finally saw a bridge that connected across the widest part of the stream and an elevated island. On the island, perfectly viewed from the middle of the bridge with branches shadowing the old structure was a large tree, its bark light in color with darker markings carved into it.

 

Kai carried Luhan onto the bridge, careful with each step as the wood creaked beneath his feet. The bridge was much larger than what Luhan had imagined, but many planks were missing and the railing that barricaded the crossers from the tree was bent and cracked. The Shade walked over the broken old and rotting wood and over to the tree. He set Luhan down and the prince scooted over to the large tree admiring the many scribbles and scratches that covered it. A few spots looked burnt and he wondered how such an old tree had survived so many years here.

 

“Why are we at a tree, Luhan?” Kai asked.

 

Luhan pulled out the papers and showed one to Kai, it was an old picture, most of it faded, but there was a small outline of what looked to be this bridge and the tree. “I have searched for years to find some sort of record on the history before the game began. I only found three pieces, though, that were not ruined beyond recognition – this picture, a passage from a book, and a story one of the miners would talk about. They said there was a tree up here that had lived longer than the name of EXOTICA with a bridge just as old that seemed to be stuck in time. I found a picture of it and then a passage that talked about a tree in which the author would tie yellow ribbons to everyday they spent without their lover.”

 

“Where was their lover?” Kai asked. “Was he in the game?”

 

“This was before the game. It was hard enough to decipher that much of the passage; the other words did not make much sense to me. There was talk about rockets and words we do not use anymore to describe fighting. I believe their lover was fighting though.”

 

The Shade looked at the tree. “There looks like there are initials on this tree…how is this supposed to stop the game?”

 

Luhan was wondering that as well. The tree did not seem to hold any sort of magic, but still. He reached out and touched the soft bark and sighed. He hoped he could see something, anything, like he did when he looked into the silver balls he used for practice, but of course those were his memories being reflected back at him and not memories he wished to see from a plant. He was surprised when Kai took his hand, entangling his fingers and pressed his other hand to the tree as well. Luhan did the same, holding Kai’s hand tight and closed his eyes.

 

He could see it. A young boy sat on one of the branches of the tree, tying a yellow ribbon around it, accompanying hundred of other ribbons. The boy looked out across the tops of the tree of the rest of the forest. In the distance, machines shot through the sky and landed on the ground creating red flashes of light. There were screams and crying and Luhan removed his hand from the tree to clutch at his heart not wanting to see anymore. He could feel tears running down his cheeks and then arms wrapped around him, holding him tight.

 

“What…what was that, Luhan?” Kai asked.

 

“Sometimes…sometimes objects are left with impressions of emotions or memories, the tree’s memories. What did you see, Kai?”

 

“I saw a man. He was in a machine that flied, not like the ones we have now, but he would look out the window and see this tree. It was really loud and there were a lot of lights. I think that was what you call a war.”

 

“War,” Luhan said softly. “They talked about that when they taught us, but they did not talk about it a lot. There use to be wars; that was all they said.”

 

The prince looked back at the tree with its marked up bark. He wondered if the boy ever got to see his lover again. He looked up higher into the branches of the tree, something swayed slightly, like a ribbon, but it looked white, faded with centuries.

 

“That was all they knew.”

 

“Did you figure out what you wanted to?” Kai asked.

 

Luhan settled himself more comfortably in Kai’s arms. “No, I figured out something else. There is no way to end this game. I think we do not understand what war is because we have the game. We send twelve people to fight for one hundred days to protect their princes instead of hundreds of people for years protecting countries and ideas. As long as I and Sehun do not die, I think this is peace. All I ever wanted to do was protect Sehun, protect my little brother, but I think trying to protect him put him in more danger.”

 

Kai stroked a hand through Luhan’s hair. “We can still try and protect him. There is not much time left, shall we go to him?”

 

The prince looked up into the sky and then closed his eyes. “They are coming after us, they will find us. I will just have to trust the Kelsic guard to keep him safe. Please, please keep him safe for the couple days we have left. And then, when this game is all over, I will beg for his forgiveness, for keeping everything from him.”

 

The Shade kissed Luhan’s cheek and held the prince tighter. They sat under the old tree and waited, not knowing how long had passed, how much time they still hand until the game ended, praying that everyone would be safe.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

Chanyeol’s body ached. He could feel bruises forming on his arms and wrists and hips, which were also sore from the continuous pounding, and his back felt numb. He wondered if he could even walk. They had given him the task of keeping the prince occupied until he was called into action. Suho had told them what Baekhyun had found when he followed the prince out on one of his ventures to get his anger out, throwing a fit in the sand yard closest to the Kelsic castle. They did not want Sehun going after Luhan or doing anything else reckless, they need to keep him protected. It would have seemed suspicious if he had asked to prince to play or talk, so instead he had tried to seduce the younger boy, over, and over, and over. When asked about it during the times he had a break, he simply said it was his powers. His day was coming soon after all. The prince seemed to believe it and abused his tall frame, being rough, but occasionally, and it surprised Chanyeol, his hands would be soft and the prince would look down at him with more than a blank or angry face. He would actually look at the weapon and Chanyeol wondered if perhaps he was worried for him.

 

There was another feeling, though, one that ran from the necklace that he wore around his neck, into his chest and throughout his body. He had lost count of the hours that past with trying to keep up with Sehun and wrinkled his eyebrows, staring up at the top of the prince’s canopy bed. Yes, it was around that time. He could feel the longing grow to get out of the castle, to be free. Chanyeol sat up and slipped out from beneath the blankets. He began to dress.

 

“Chanyeol?” Sehun asked, sitting up in bed as well.

 

 The weapon turned. He felt funny, he did not feel real. He felt like he was looking through a doll’s eyes as he looked at the prince and he smiled. “Yes, prince?”

 

“Where are you going? I did not say you could leave.”

 

“I have to go now, prince, I have been called. Baekhyun will protect you; he is right outside the door.”

 

“Is it…that time already?”

 

Chanyeol touched the necklace around his neck. “It would seem that way. I shall go now, prince, make sure to stay close to the guard. There will be no one else here to protect you.”

 

“What do you mean no one else? Where are D.O and the leader?”

 

Chanyeol sighed. “They went after Luhan. Kai kidnapped him and they ran away together.”

 

He knew as soon as he said those words he should not have, but he could not bring himself to care. He could feel heat spreading throughout his body. He had to go.

 

“I shall go now, prince. I have to go.”

 

Without another look at the prince, Chanyeol left his room. The only words he spoke to the guard where ‘It’s time’, and he continued past him. He walked out of the castle in a sort of daze and began this trek into the city. His feet burned, everything burned. He felt like he could set fire to the gravel ground. Eventually, Chanyeol stopped and looked at the building on the side of the city where more light greeted the gray steel structures. On top of one of them stood the Mafic weapon. Chanyeol stared at him for a minute before he lifted a hand. A feather appeared, covered in flames and he blew on it. The feather began to lift, moving faster when a gust of strong wind from the castle behind him blew through the city, and moved toward the other weapon.

 

Chanyeol watched the feather move and land in Kris’ hand. The Mafic weapon held the feather for a moment before he crushed it. Their eyes met. Chanyeol felt fire erupt on his back and then cover his whole body. He watched through his now glassy, nonhuman eyes as a building behind Kris erupted and a dragon appeared. It spread his large leathery wings as Kris spread his arms and then they merged together and became one.

 

The Kelsic weapon tried to cry out to the other, the part of him that was still Chanyeol surprised, but all that came out was a screech like a bird’s and he felt himself grow and burn. He saw his form now reflected in the windows of the building around them – a giant bird with fire for feathers. Chanyeol flapped his large wings and rose into the air, lighting up the night sky of the Kelsic half of the kingdom like a second sun.  

 

The dragon did the same, rising into the air yards away from Chanyeol. They stared into each other’s eyes, slitted reptilian into large glassy ones. Everything in Chanyeol’s mind went blank except one thought – fight.

 

The dragon moved first. He swooped down then back up and charged at Chanyeol with a roar. The bird flapped his wings and moved, a trail of fire following behind him. He opened his mouth, screeching and a trail of fire escaped heading at the dragon. The other weapon brought his wings around his body like a shield and the fire licked his scales, but did not penetrate the thin but sustainable material of his wings. Kris attacked again, jaws wide and he went for the bird’s throat, but only clamped down on the fire of his wings and he shook his head of the flames. 

 

And they continued like that, flying in a circle, clawing and biting each other. They knocked into buildings and destroyed the ground below when they swooped low or fell never noticing the slight movement of the sun and the growing darkness.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

Something was off. Kai could feel it as he stared up into the sky, Luhan napping on his chest. What was it? How much longer did they have? Where the others on their way, where they already searching for them? Kai jumped when he heard a roar and shook Luhan’s arms. The prince fluttered his eyes before opening them completely and looked up at Kai.

 

“What is it, Kai?” Luhan asked.

 

“Get up. There is something strange.” He heard the roar again followed by screeching.

 

The prince immediately stood up hearing it as well and looked around.

 

“It must be the weapons.”

 

“Is it already the last day?” Kai asked.

 

The prince turned to the tree and started climbing it.

 

“What are you doing, Luhan? What about your leg?” The Shade watched the prince as he moved higher and higher up the tree.

 

“I am fine, I need to see, to make sure…oh no.”

 

“What is it?”

 

“It is the last day. They are fighting, Kris and Chanyeol.”

 

Kai kept his head tilted up watching Luhan. He suddenly went stiff when he felt a harsh breeze past by him.

 

“Luhan, come down, it is not them, there is something else.”

 

“What else…ah!”

 

A harsher gush or wind made its way through the trees and Luhan slipped falling. Kai reached out for Luhan, but was pushed away by the wind again, hitting the bark of the tree. Luhan gave out a cry of pain and Kai groaned and stood up. He teleported over before he could be knocked away again and brought Luhan into his arms. The prince’s face was scrunched up in pain and he clung to Kai’s shirt.

 

“My leg, I think it is broken now.”

 

The Shade stared down at the prince’s already sprained leg. It looked off, crooked. Kai stroked his face. “Shh, shh, it will be fine.”

 

“Of course he would not die from simply falling off a tree.”

 

The Shade lifted his head and looked into the trees. The Kelsic prince walked through the trees and stepped onto the bridge.

 

“I thought it was you,” Kai said.

 

“Of course you knew it was me. Oh, you remember now.”

 

“I remember,” Kai said. “What are you doing here, where are the others?”

 

Sehun laughed. “They thought it would be a good idea to hide the fact my old best friend ran away with my brother; that my assassin ran away with his target.”

 

“Do you not approve of us, Sehun? I have never asked you,” Kai asked.

 

“That is not it,” Sehun said with a shake of his head. “If I did not hate Luhan, I would have cheered you two on. But, I hate you Luhan. You lied to me and went behind my back, planning.”

 

“I was just trying to protect you. I did not want you to know we would have to fight each other, to give the order to have the other killed. I did not want you to know about it at such a young age. I was going to tell you, when I figured out a way to keep you safe, but then someone else told you,” Luhan said, wriggling desperately in Kai’s arms, but ended up giving a cry of pain.

 

“Protecting me; if you wanted to do that then die.”

 

Kai held Luhan closer to him. “I will not let him die. I will not let you die either.”

 

“I know. The only one that could have killed him was you…or me. I guess it is up to me.”

 


	17. Two Moons

**Two Moons:**

 

 

 

Kai could remember the day when Sehun began to hate his older brother. For years, he and Sehun lived in the Mafic castle. The two princes were the children of the Mafic heir princess. She had married a Mafic prince, but he had died soon after their marriage in an accident at the mining fields. She had not remarried, but after Luhan had been born, she had found a lover in a Kelsic born knight. There were other princes in the Kelsic castle, but the heir prince had no child and refused to take a bride, so it had been decided that when the new century came, Luhan and Sehun would be the princes in the game.

 

Talk of the game was always going around the castle. When Kai had been brought in at the age of four he had been confused about the talk, but he was confused about a lot of things, like why he had been taken from his home and brought to the castle and then he had meant Sehun and Luhan and he started to become confused by the older boy, the boy that was four years older than him. They all quickly became friends. Sometimes Kai and Sehun would fight for the attention over Luhan and sometimes Luhan and Sehun would fight for attention over Kai. He thought it was amusing at first and tried to always play with them equally because that was what he had been told to do.

 

It was when Luhan was twelve that he began to look distance. He began to take classes and did not play with Sehun and Kai as much and they began referring to him and the Mafic prince, a player in the game. Sehun would tell Kai that he was also a player in the game and that he and Luhan were to play together. He talked as if it was just a simple board game, just with real people. Maybe it was. That was also when Kai began to fall in love with Luhan.

 

Kai started to go into the older boy’s room when Sehun was off playing with one of the princes from the Kelsic castle or entertaining cousins and when Kai was not being forced to practice with one of the knights. Usually Luhan was studying, but would allow Kai to sit on the window seat until he was done then he would sit with him and allow the younger boy to put his head in his lap and Kai would nap there.

 

When Sehun and he turned twelve, they were brought in for a lesson together. They explained the game, what it really was. Their explanation of why it existed was unclear, but Kai had been more interested in watching Sehun’s expression as the elders talked to them. They had told Kai they were unsure of what position he would have only that he was destined to be part of the game and then they talked to Sehun about his position. Kai’s heart broke when he heard Luhan and Sehun would have to give the order to kill each other.

 

Sehun and Luhan fought after that, it was the first time Kai had seen them really fight, not just bicker about which of their teams Kai would be on. The twelve year old Sehun pushed Luhan around, small fists pounding into the sixteen year old’s chest and Luhan just took it, tears flowing from his eyes as he tried to beg for Sehun’s forgiveness. Then he was taken. Kelsic guards came and helped pack Sehun’s things and took him to the other castle, they took him crying and scream and yelling ‘I hate you, I hate you,’ at Luhan and Kai held the older boy, trying to keep him together, he held him the whole week until he was taken to the Kelsic castle to spend a week with Sehun.

 

Somehow he had been able to stay friends with Sehun. Even when he confessed to the Kelsic prince that he was in love with the older boy, he had simply said, “Good for you, but I still hate him.”

 

Kai did not think Sehun really hated his brother. He could see it in his eyes, the sadness the mention of Luhan brought and eventually he just became blank faced. He did not hate his brother, he felt betrayed and scared and the only person he could direct those feelings to was the brother he dearly loved.

 

At least that was what Kai had assumed. So, Sehun definitely would not kill Luhan. He could not.

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

The Shade watched Sehun approached them. He held Luhan tighter to him and glared at the younger prince. What did Sehun have planned? He had no weapon and Kai was holding Luhan and had no plans on letting him go. All he could through as thrown them around, but that would end in Kai’s death as well.

 

“Let go of him,” Sehun said now standing in front of Luhan and Kai.

 

“Never,” Kai said.

 

“Please Sehun. I am sorry, I am sorry I did not tell you. I am sorry you had to go through this,” Luhan cried.

 

“Shut up!”

 

“Sehun, stop this. You do no hate your brother,” Kai tried to reason. “There are only hours left, please, just sit and stay here and you both can survive.”

 

“If I do not kill him, a hundred years from now, two more brothers may be put through the same thing. I hate you, going behind my back, making plans without me just so we could survive these one hundred days. What were you going to do when your plans were ruined, Luhan?”

 

The Mafic prince shifted in Kai’s arms. “I was going to die. If it meant you could go back home safer, then I was going to die.”

 

“Then why are you not dead yet?”

 

Kai looked up at Sehun. “He wanted me to kill him, but there was never any possible way I would ever do that. Just like there was no way I could have ever killed you, Sehun.”

 

The Kelsic prince looked away. “The game needs to end; it needs to never be played again. I hate you, Luhan, but I hate this game even more for making me hate you.”

 

“Sehun,” Luhan said softly.

 

“I have to kill you. We are too much of coward it seems. I can not possibly kill myself, just like you will only die if Kai or I do it, so I will do it, I will kill you.”

 

Kai looked down at Luhan’s face. The older prince stared up at his brother with shining sad eyes that suddenly closed. His face became like it was when the Shade would wrap his hand around his slender neck intent on killing him.

 

“No!” Kai yelled and scooted back holding Luhan to him. “I will not let you kill him, Sehun. I love you both, but Luhan is mine. I am the only one allowed to take his breath away, not even you can take that away.”

 

Sehun looked at Kai surprised. Then he sighed and lifted a hand. “Well, if you are going to be like that, Jongin, then you will have to die, too. You will die in each other’s arms by my hand. Is that alright?”

 

The Shade just glared at the prince as wind started to collect around him, leaves swirling in the rush of air, pulled of the branches of the tree they were under. Sehun pushed the air at them and Kai held tight to Luhan as they were both pushed back, landing on the edge of the island the tree was home on. Kai stood up, holding Luhan bridle style and jumped when Sehun threw another gush of wind at him. He was not able to block the third gush and went flying into the railing of the bridge. He felt splinters digging into his back as he slid down and groaned.

 

“Jongin, Jongin,” Luhan called his name, holding his face in his hands.

 

Kai just smiled at him. He knew what he was thinking, that he was useless, that he wished he could do something, that he should just die as he sat there in Kai’s crumpled lamp, the Shade still holding onto him. Kai could hear another gush of wind coming at them and held Luhan close, but the impact never came. He heard Luhan winced and looked behind him to see a barricade made of the broken wood from the bridge suspended in the air. A second gush of wind from Sehun destroyed the barricade, but took the impact of it as well, pushing it around them.

 

 Luhan moved in Kai’s lap facing his brother. The Kelsic prince sent more gushes of harsh wind at them. Luhan lifted his hands and moved whatever items he could find around the tree and bridge to knock the harshness of the wind away. All the time, Kai kept a firm hold on Luhan. Could they both keep this up for how ever many hours were left? He could still hear Chanyeol and Kris fighting above them, roars and crashes echoing throughout the kingdom.  

 

“Luhan!”

 

Kai jumped hearing someone yell out the prince’s name.

 

“Luhan!”

 

The Shade was surprised to see the Mafic healer running across the bridge. He paused when he saw Sehun. The other prince seemed annoyed with the intrusion. He glared at Lay and then grumbled when more footsteps followed.

 

The Kelsic healer and the two leaders joined Lay on the bridge.

 

“Sehun!” D.O said in surprise in surprise. “What are you doing here; you should be in the castle. Where is Baekhyun?”

 

Sehun stared at his hand. “He should still be passed out. Your little way of distracting me did not work, Chanyeol ended up spilling everything before he ran away to fight. He is up there right now, you see right? Unlike you guys, it does not take me a day or more to travel all that way. I have the wind after all.”

 

Suho began to make his way across the bridge, the other four following. “Sehun…I…I am sorry for not telling you, but it is safer for you in the castle where Baekhyun can properly keep you safe.”

 

Sehun shook his head.

 

“No, can you not see them fighting up there? They are destroying everything. What if they get close to the castle? We are all safer here. Well, except Luhan.” Sehun lifted his arms, wind collecting again.

 

Water lifted from the river and shot at Sehun. The Kelsic prince fell, soaked and looked over at Suho. He sent a gush of wend at the leader only to have it blocked by a wall of ice.

 

“You are not my prince, and not my responsibility if you die, but you will not kill my prince. This game is almost finished, let us have peace.”

 

“This is not about peace anymore,” Sehun said. He shook himself of the water and took a step toward Luhan and Kai, arm lifted ready to attack again.

 

“Sehun!” Luhan screamed.

 

Kai saw it, too, the black vortex that appeared behind the Kelsic prince and then the thin sharp sword that ran through his side like a skewer, piercing him. Sehun fell to the ground, sliding off the sharp metal in a crumpled heap on the leaf covered floor, blood beginning to pool around him.

 

The tall figure of the Mafic Shade appeared behind where Sehun had stood. He lowered his blood covered sword and stood over the prince’s injured body. His eyes were dark and blank, they were not the same eyes Kai was use to seeing on the other Shade the few times they had run into each other.

 

“Tao!” Lay cried.

 

The other Shade looked at the healer, barely giving him any recognition before he lifted his sword reading to slide it into the prince’s body again.

 

“Tao, stop!”

 

 Ice collected on the sword and the Shade let it go, jumping away. He did not get far before his feet were frozen to the ground as well and he fell to his knees. The two healers ran to them, D.O holding the injured prince in his arms and Lay trying to get the Shade’s attention, but all Tao did was stare at him and repeat the other’s name.

 

“Yixing, Yixing, Yixing.”

 

“What is wrong with him?” Lay asked.

 

The question broke Kai out of his trance. “He…he is the Shade, he has done his job. I think he might be going through what I did when I remembered.” He turned his head to where D.O sat with Sehun. “Is he…dead?”

 

D.O shook his head. “He…it is bad.”

 

Sehun gasped and began coughing, blood flowing from his mouth. Luhan began to cry and crawled away from Kai toward his brother. A loud screech brought Kai’s attention toward the sky. His eyes widened as he watched the large fire bird fall from the sky. He could feel the land shake when its body landed on the ground with a loud thump. The dragon flapped its wings, still in the sky and then headed their way. It did not take it long to begin descending on them, transforming back into the weapon.

 

Kris leaned against the railing of the bridge, tears in his close and scratches and bite marks covering his body. Xiumin stomped over to his weapon and slapped his hand across the other’s face.

 

“Is this what you wanted Kris? Did you plan for Sehun to die? Why the last day of all days, why?”

 

The weapon seemed surprised by the slap and stared wide eyed at Xiumin. “I…I wanted the games to end. I thought he would have killed Sehun earlier.”

 

“Baekhyun’s too good of a guard, he would not have left him and Sehun is not as manipulative with his feelings and Luhan,” Xiumin said and lifted his hand to slap the other again.

 

“Xiumin!” Luhan yelled. “Stop slapping him. Just someone, someone please help Sehun. He can not die. If he dies, Chanyeol will die as well. They only tell the princes that, but you knew that, Kris.”

 

“I wanted to end the games. I did not care who died. If Kai killed Luhan than I died,” Kris explained.

 

“I…I do not…not Chanyeol, please,” came Sehun’s croaked voice and the grasped onto D.O’s shirt. “Please.”

 

“I can not heal him by myself, there is not enough time, my powers are weakening,” D.O explained.

 

“Lay, help him please,” Luhan said.

 

“What about your leg?”

 

Kai moved and held Luhan to him. “Anyone can fix a leg, but who can bring someone back to life?”

 

The Mafic healer nodded and moved away from the blank Shade to place his hands with D.O’s over the younger prince’s side.

 

“If you heal him, the games will continue,” Kris said. “I thought everyone wanted them to end. Everyone seemed so afraid of the game, like they wished it was back before such a thing existed.”

 

Luhan shook his head. “No, the game is just a game compared to the things that happened before, that is the reason we play it, to keep peace in this world.”

 

“How do you know this, Luhan?” Kris asked. “You make it sound like I have done wrong.”

 

“You did what you thought was right, but I have learned why it is like this.”

 

Kai listened to Luhan explain what they had saw as he stared at the light both healers produced over Sehun’s wound, watching the blood flow stop and the prince’s breaths even out, his hand still clutched into D.O’s shirt begging the healers to keep him alive for Chanyeol who must have been feeling the same pain as the prince, the prince’s weapon. He thought Chanyeol would be happy knowing Sehun wanted to live so that he could live as well.

 

The Mafic weapon fell to his knees, his words of repenting not reaching Kai’s ears as the Shade’s attention lifted to the sky again, to the tattered white ribbon, once yellow, that blew on a high branch of the tree. Through the branches he could see the moon…no, two moons, one like a reflection of the first. The sky was moving, everything looked reflected.

 

“54…55…56…” Suho began

 

“What are you counting…” Xiumin began to asked before he joined the other leader, “…59…100.”

 

 

**☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾ ☽ ☾  ☽**

 

 

The sun descended on the West horizon, night completely over taking the sky for only a few seconds before the sun appeared on the east, behind the mountains of the Kelsic mountains and time bean again. The reflections in the windows of the steal buildings began to take form and move and the destroyed buildings renewed themselves, the signs of damage gone. Birds chirped in the trees and flew across the sky and the fish swam in the streams again.

 

Lying on a road in the city, a battered red haired boy awoke and limped his way back to his castle with only the thought of seeing the younger boy he loved. Another woke from a sudden sleep, heart racing as he looked around and noticed his charge had escaped. He stood and looked out a window surprised to see people in the city, even a car driving across the sand of the beach. The driver of the car drove with one arm, his other wrapped and resting on his lap as he headed toward the cliff. He parked the car and waited.

 

The other nine players made their way down the mountain, taking the longer way. The two princes clung to the backs of their lover and the regretful weapon, the leaders walking on both sides of them. The black haired fighter allowed himself to be helped by his lover, body limp and mind still recovering, seeming in a state of shock.

 

It was hours before they made it down the mountain and into the car awaiting them. As they approached the city, heading toward the hospital, they passed by the smiling ignorant faces of EXOTICA’s civilians. Children laughed and smiled, holding the hands of their siblings and parents and friends bickered in fast food shops.

 

One hundred days of war had passed, but only twelve would ever feel the fear and hurt of it.


End file.
